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Over the years, I've spoken to many women whose ex-husbands were defying court orders to pay child support. What most of them have learned when they take their ex back to court for contempt is that judges rarely throw a deadbeat in jail. They threaten to do so, but in my opinion, it isn't often that a judge will follow through on a threat.

Not enforcing a court order undermines a woman's ability to care for her children. For some reason though, a judge seems more concerned with how being jailed will negatively affect a deadbeat father. It isn't only child support orders that aren't enforced — in the Family Court System, it's any order.

In September of 2004, my former husband and I finally went back to court on the post-majority expense issue and another issue having to do with housing. My ex was ordered to pay 93% of our son's college expenses. He angered the judge by behaving arrogantly so the judge retaliated by slamming him with 93% of the expenses. However, with grants and scholarships my former husband would have only had to pay a couple of thousand dollars a year. It wasn't like the man was going to go broke helping his son with college expenses.

The judge also ordered him to follow through on the agreement he had made with me for housing dating back to September of 1999. The judge did something that I thought was very odd. He read into the court record what he had ordered and then he told both lawyers to get together and come to an agreement on how the order would be worded. Once the lawyers had come to an agreement, the judge would write the order and sign it.

My lawyer immediately contacted my ex-husband's lawyer trying to come to an agreement on the wording. That wasn't an easy task. When a man has been ordered to pay and do things he doesn't want to do, his lawyer will drag his feet because the last thing he wants is an order signed by a judge.

I had a son in college who wasn't getting any help from his father with his expenses and the housing issue was hanging over my head. I was constantly stressed over not knowing from one day to the next, if I was going to lose my home. Nine months later, I was still stressed out.

Finally, after motions by my lawyer and threats from the judge, we had an agreement on the wording. In July 2005, the judge signed an order, nearly nine months to the day after we had gone to court. It was an order that my former husband never had any intention of following in the first place.

Shortly after leaving the marriage, my ex developed a sense of entitlement. Having children to care for emotionally and financially no longer fit into his agenda. He did the least he could do as far as supporting them and obstinately refused to do more even though it had been court-ordered. What he has done to them emotionally would cause the hair on the back of your neck to stand up.

He scoffed at the July 2005 court order just as he had all the other court orders. He was court-ordered to sign mortgage documents on a substitute home for his children. Instead, he went out within days of getting the order and signed mortgage documents for a home he was building for himself. It was a blatant snub and he got away with it.

I took him back to court for contempt of court...once again. The judge yelled at him and threatened to throw him and his lawyer in jail that day. The judge ruled from the bench in February of 2006 telling my ex that he had 60 days to comply with the original decree of divorce, which had been written in September 1999 or he would go to jail.

My ex never saw the inside of a jail and never will because judges don't enforce court orders. To hell with those annoying written laws, the laws that mandate a judge punish someone for defying court orders. It's those unwritten laws that determine what really happens when defiance occurs and nine times out of ten, nothing happens.

Cathy Meyer is the head of About.com's Divorce Support channel. To hear more from Cathy, go to: divorcesupport.about.com.

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245 comments

I separated from my abusive ex with our 2 year old twins, 9 years ago! After we separated he stalked me, followed me, broke into my house, I moved and he found me, threatened to kill both of us while our babies slept in the next room, he kept notebooks full of my daily activities, hacked my online accounts, threatened my friends, etc. For all the effort he put into that for 5 years, he never even called our kids to wish them a happy birthday or for anything at all. I made a deal with him. If he would leave me alone, I would happily raise them alone without support. My biggest concern being our well-being. In the 9 years we have been apart, I have only asked him to help me one time. I was struggling and behind on the electric bill and they turned off our power. He scoffed at me and said I was on my own. We were without power for several months when a neighbor called CPS. I had a generator for the essentials, but it was not fair for them to do without. CPS took my babies and have them to him. They gave me a week to figure out how to fix it. My ex didn't even want them. He told me I needed to be at his place to take care of them or he was just going to surrender them to CPS to be placed with strangers. He offered to pay me to sleep with him, knowing I was desperate. I declined and did everything I could to get our power on. I got them back as soon as the worker came out to check. But I still have a charge of neglect on record because of it that he holds over my head. It never would have happened if he would have helped. I was always proud to do it on my own, not applying for government assistance because those resources should be used for people who really need them. After that, I realized that was now one of those people. Life is not cheap and I do not live with any extravagance. We don't have internet or cable, my car is falling to pieces, etc. I applied for assistance for help with my electricity and other things and DSS persued him for child support. That came with more threats and violence and after throwing a chair in the room for our pretrial hearing, falsifying documents at another hearing without a judge, our case was closed because he violently threatened me not to appear in court or he would make my life a bigger hell. I tried to contact child support to postpone the hearing out of fear and somehow my address had been changed in their system. I gave them every address I had ever lived at and the address they currently had did not match and they would not speak to me without that piece of verification. I was told I had to come into the office to change my address. The office is almost an hour away, they close at 4pm, and I'm a struggling single mother that can not afford to take time from work unpaid. Meanwhile he just bought a beautiful new luxury boat, a brand new truck, takes his gf and her kid out to fancy dinners, and brags about making 3x my salary. But he never sees our kids because: 1.he's too busy, 2. I need to provide food and clothing for their visits with him which is insane and unrealistic on my budget, 3. They don't like the way he treats them without me ever once saying a bad thing about him. I did not seek support, the state did. Not all woman are money hungry manipulators. I've never told him he couldn't see his children either, barring any concerns for their safety should any arise. I did follow through with pursuit of support as required because I need the help. He tells our kids I'm trying to ruin his life and get him thrown in jail. None of that is true. Jail only comes into play if you don't do what you're supposed to. It's only fair that we both created them and THEY deserve the benefit of both of our incomes for the necessities of life no matter who they are with. That's true under any circumstances. Moms are not owed money. Dad's shouldn't have to pay unrealistic amounts without cause. But some parents, like my ex, will not help out willingly even in dire circumstances. For situations like mine, involving the court sets a clear legal expectation on all parties involved so that its fair and the is no further need to battle over it. Sadly, in my case, he lies cheats and bullies his way into getting the case closed and our children will do without basic comforts because of it. He says I should get extra jobs if I need money. That's not fair to me or them. They barely see me as it is. Children need the presence of their parents. I am battling an illness that has resulted in 4 surgeries and counting this year. I still work hard and provide and I'm utterly exhausted. But they need things like food and shelter and clothes that cost money. My state will not reopen the old case to make it retroactive. My benefits lapsed because I could not take off from work to spend the day at DSS for a redetermination appointment. I tried multiple times to call and it is pointless because they don't call back. When I reapplied they created a new case and he is already threatening me again. I went to child support to plead with them to send us straight before a judge so we could skip the multiple pretrial meetings. I can't deal with it. The entire process takes too long. It gives the other parents too much time to build their deceptions, quit their jobs, etc....and in my case makes me unsafe. There is an option to waive the support with legal documentation of violence. But the twins are 11 now. I am not too proud to admit I need some relief. I need him to share in the responsibility of their care. Not at the expense of his own well-being, but he has PLENTY of money for everything he wants and needs with no regard for his children. And for the record, he wanted them. He wanted to have children with me. He has never denied they are his. He was not trapped into fatherhood as is the case with some poor men. Sex is a mutual choice that has consequences for both parties involved. People know pregnancy is a risk. But dads dont really get a say in what happens if an unexpected pregnancy occurs. That's an unfair truth. But for my ex and I, he was ready to have children and he was excited for our twins. At least until we separated and he decided his selfish desires are more important than they are. I can't afford an attorney an I know the outcome, if any, will be unfair. He is hiding his 1099 income and his money in accounts in his brothers name. Right now any little bit of help would be better than nothing.

I don't know about other states but here in Florida I had much much success emailing my governor rick Scott.After 16 years of nothing I now receive support because the actual Florida Department of revenue is handling my interstate case for free of charge..This info if read carefully and researched well can be applied to help possibly a million people.I thought for years I didn't Matter well not true.

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Thursday, 06 October 2016 20:40
posted by A very tired man

I'm sorry...But if there was any justice with this entire system, I wouldn't want to kill myself every day, just like I have been contemplating it for almost 13 years now, with probably another 10 to come. The only reason I haven't is that my daughters deserve better and the least I can do is prove to them I'm not a quitter.

The sad part about all of this is, it's only about the money. People speak of fairness, of obligation and of support. But this entire subject is devoid of all of it. The only people suffering from this pointless bickering are the children, who will see one, or both of their parents, suffer through some of the worse stress there can be, something that will significantly shorten their life spans. For only money. Probably the most useless concept ever created and one for which people in droves will kill for. Useless money we can't live without. Useless money that serves no purpose and that, in a better world, wouldn't cost anything.

I can't speak for everyone else, I can only speak for my own situation. And in my own situation, if there was any kind of justice on planet Earth...my ex-wife would be dead. Literally. For all that I've lived through and endured for the last 13 years, for everything I've cried, for the lack of empathy, for all of it, she deserves to be dead if there was justice to be served.

Why?
Because I could never be the one that wishes she would be. She wouldn't say the same.

Hi all. I have spent 2 1/2 of the past 3 hours gleening this site. I must admit, there are a few very informative writeups, penned by some rather insightful contributors. I have even bookmarked enough for future reading to warrant the creation of a dedicated folder.

This is my first comment
here, publicly anyway, borne from my need to expel the blood I now choke on from the biting of my tongue due to the accumulation of crap that underlies the majority of your little woe-is-me, how do we cope, discuss condoms, force our kids to tolerate the new beau because the house needs repaired before you take the vacation that you had planned and began financing ten months ago with your now ex-husband, whom you wrote about in your article: how can I keep my ex from bothering me with annoying calls and texts to our kids while we're on vacation.

That missing half hour of the past 3 hrs? I spent that 30 minutes meditating and purifying my thoughts from the pre Madonna crap most of the regulars here incessently regurgitate.

Yeah...I can hear you loudly and clearly: "Great! Another disgruntled male.."
Your erred contention: That we men, despite our flaws, are your kids' FATHERS.
I see a nauseating affinity for generalizing all males as owing everything to you, skirting responsibilities, wrecking your homes, ruining your credit, and "HELL YEAH! 12 key points to make sure no stone is left unturned in the pursuit of a full bloodletting of his vascular system in the courtroom, because he isn't paying for your son's college.
Nevermind the fact that he struggles to buy groceries to feed himself, and fuel to continue getting himself to work, because between paying the mortgage on YOUR dreamhome, the monthly health insurance premiums for your kids, your alimony, and child support that the bastard is behind on, he lives on 30% of his net. You conveniently ignore the taxes that he pays on what he pays on all of the above; why shouldn't you? You receive all of the above - tax free!
He never sees his kids because he works over 50 hrs a week, is too exhausted to TRULY ENGAGE his kids - no your kids - as they now want little to do with dad, what with the alienation created by your countless belittling of your ex-wasband, on coupled with their inability to comprehend the numerous dillemas that have reduced their Dad to a mere shell of what he should be.

What on earth compels me to blow up like this, in the midst of strangers?
BOTH my wives were cheaters. Neither had any issues with taking the infant child that I fathered with each of them, over to the other mens' place, after I would leave for work most every morning; neither saw anything wrong with having my kid in the other guy's bed with them either. By their own admission, "they're babies, they didn't know the difference." Neither could seem to comprehrehend that the real issues at hand went far, FAR deeper than the cognitance of an infant! Naturally, having been in bed most of the day, neither wife would be ready for any type of evening activities normally present at the day's end of a functional family unit. I'll assume I needn't elaborate on how mothers who stay in bed until early afternoon potty train toddlers. Suffice it to say that my son, the younger of my two kids, trained himself - he said he wanted a motorcycle. I told him about hiw big boys who ride motorcycles also wear big boy pants. 4 days later, he was through with fuzzy, matted, saggy diapers; perhaps some of you may actually realize that reference.
My first wife and her boyfriend attemoted to move her and my daughter out while I was at work. I happened to get off early when they were half-done.
My second wife just left. Called her mother, took our son and her two girls (half-sisters), and left - left all their clothes and belongings - then led others to believe that I refused to let them have any of it. The only one of us doing any witholding was her, with my son. Repeated calls to my lawyer would finally produce my son after 3-5 days, usually.
I'd pick him up at her new residence, which wreaked of the raw sewage that pooled under the house, and gaze in disbelief at the fuzz of mold growing on the floors, from the constant moisture of said sewage, as she rummaged through the mountain of filthy clothes mixed with the feces of a half dozen cats and two dogs who were unable to clean their own litter box, or open the doors to get outside to use the yard. While searching for our son's clothes (always accumulated there because she never laundered them) she would incessantly scream at me how he would have clothes if I weren't such a dick and keeping them all.
My calls to OK CPS ultimately ended with the accusation of me making "malicious claims". Perhaps it was because that house she was in was also her lawyer's rent-house. Incidently, her lawyer was later proven to have extorted his clients' accounts. He fled to Lake Texoma, and deposited a chunk of lead into his skull.
My should be ex never retained nee council, and oddly enough, after some months of my getting nowhere with the court, our custody case "stagnated" and my lawyer withdrew as my council - once I had bled out, so to speak... In hindsight, I really should have expected that - you see, the judge was my wife's lead poisoned lawyer's cousin.
Oh, that rent house with the private cesspool, was deeded to my wife by that judge's sister.
At this same time, the parenting plan set forth by the state of MT, with my first wife, for our daughter, required the usual child support obligation that we Dad's are usually awarded, and also the full responsibility of healthcare coverage. BCBS costs the same for 3 dependents as it does for one, so naturally both of my kids were covered. For those who missed that... I had acquired health insurance for my daughter through BCBS of MT, and my son and I both were on the policy, as residents of OK. I was court ordered to provide coverage for my gaughter from my first marriage, in MT, but voluntarily covered my son, from my second marriage, in OK, because of well, common sense. There was no court order - there wasnt even a divorce or parenting plan yet.. stagnated case, remember.. It seems that laying around all day, soaking up sewage and animal feces doesn't pay all that well, so my SHOULD BE ex wife went to the DHS and git on the FS program. She also had two daughters - NOT mine, who needed healthcare coverage.
So, we all know the story: single mom gies to DHS, applys for and gets Food Stamps, and Medicaid for her daughters and herself, my son has coverage through BCBS of MT. OK DHS Caseworker concludes that the best course of action for all involved is to put my son on their rolls as well, medicaid coverage is, you know, so much mire reliable than anything willfully provided by those deadbeat Dads - he could get mad at you next week and cancel that boys coverage, so we'll just prevent having to deal with that later, and include him on the same case # right now - so we dont have to worry about dad leaving us hanging..
So now, what happens when single mom and 3 kids get FS and Medicaid? DHS CSS branch persues the father/s for Child Support! Does not make one iota of fly crap that there is NO divorce, NO parenting plan, NO support order and that Dad is still paying 500+ dollars a month for BCBS coverage that includes that very child. Also, this BCBS policy was 8 YEARS OLD!! My son was only 3!!
So now... NOW I am the standard OBLIGED father as far as OK DHS is concerned. They relentlessly order anf summon me EVERY 70 - 90 DAYS for their BS TRUMPED UP Child Support order. Every 90 days I miss time at work, because I am summoned and ordered to appear. I show up, present the.. um..FACTS... leaving them with no choice but to dismiss their support order - for another 60 days, at which time they repeat the entire process. This continued for 22 MONTHS, by then I was no longer even in Brokelahoma, but was happily a MT resident once again - as was my son, 80% of the time. However, his mother and I still haf no divorce, etc. and unfortunately I depended on our verbal agreement for that 80%.
Next, in Nov of 2010, my son is 3 mos shy of being 9, Xmas is just around the corner. I fly him to OK to let him spend his school break with his Mom and two half sisters there. The return airfare is never used.. she keeps him, gets her district court in OK to grant temp custody of him, claiming that I never came to get him - abandonment. The Child Support BS fires up again. Except now their prospective booty is 35% of $4800-$5000/month for child support. I call the OK Attorney General, and also take a week off work to go deal with brokelahoma. Within 20 minutes of getting to that crap town, in my should be ex wife's house, there is a knock on her door, and a male voice referencing my full legal name. Well hell I've no doubt you all know what he did for a living. Yeah I had a good paying job now. Only had it for 4 months by then though. I was far from dripping in greenbacks. I was broke.. By the 4th day of my week off I still had not even been allowed to speak to my son on the phone - hell, it had been 3 1/2 months since I flew him to OK out of kindness, generosity to his mom and half sisters, and love for my son. I did this with my FIRST paycheck from that awesome job I stumbled into. I easily could have kept him there with me that xmas, and he'd still have had his half sister here in MT to celebrate with too - he has 3 half sisters, in case you hadnt put that together..

So OK is trying to award her FULL custody, and leave my son and I with 6 weeks in the summer, because I "abandoned" him afterall.. I needed a lawyer...FAST. A damn good one too.. I called my employer for help - 4 month new employer, at that. 3 days left of my unexpected emergency week off, I ask my boss of less than 17 weeks for a $10,000 loan!! At this VERY MOMENT, Sept of 2016, I - a grown man - am still brought to the point of full on crying tears dripping from my beard, simply from the 6 year old MEMORY of that man asking how and where he should wire it to - without hesitation..
I told him I would need to work that out upon speaking to whichever attorney I could find and retain for ten grand. I told him I'd let him know within 24 hrs, as to where to wire it.
Within two hours of securing that guarantee of ten grand I so desperately needed, I had a moment of rational clarity. The ONLY way that $10,000 was going to get my son in that seat next to me back home to MT was by using it not on retaining counsel, but by hiring a fricking hitman..
My boss received that call from me only 16 hrs into that 24 that I had told him. I thanked him again for his faith in me, his support, etc., but that he need not send it. I could not use it as planned.
I called my should be ex, requested that she contantact her cleft-note lawyer, I wanted to waive my entrance with counsel, and wished to meet with him to sign...
My son had not been allowed to even call me, nor I him, since 8 days after I saw him off at Logan airport in Billings, MT. He had missed 3 WEEKS of school in the time his mom had him. I just wanted him in that seat next to me.
I signed those papers while under DURESS.
His mom had a sudden need to secure her "look, see how generous I am son" facade, and had her lawyer rewrite the order to allow for joint custody. 1st semester of scool with me, in MT; 2nd semester with her, in dopelahoma. I was certain, there wad no way in hell. I'd been trying to get the court to see that she was not only narcissistic, but very likely also legaly insane.. To my total dismay, so was that District Judge there in dopelahoma - no issue at all with such a concept.
The 3 yrs after, our son would miss at most, 1 day of school 1st semester in MT, then miss no LESS than 20 the 2nd semester, in OK with mom. I never figured out how to get the DA there to do his (then, on the 3rd yr)/her job, and prosecute for truancy..at the very least!
My ex, is is constant contempt of 7 of the 12 provisions that SHE authored. I am now partially paralyzed in my righ arm (&right handed), cannot work. Hell, I can barely hit the toilet - never used my left hand for that.
My son has been here with me since April of 2015, now a freshman. I can no longer affird those fast flights I used to provide for HIS convenience. Thankfully his mom hadnt insisted on that in thise papers she had drawn up. I just wish she would read her own work. She insists that shes having me thrown in jail for keeping him from her. I point out #8 in her papers, "mutually aggreed upon halfway point" she tells me I need to re read them, she never would have had that put in..
I am now also on FS, and Medicaid.
The real kicker: DHS has not ONCE ooened any child support case against her...now that the shoe is TRULY on the other foot, there "are no grounds" they say.
Yet somehow I STILL OWE just over $68 interest on $0.00 in arrears on some unknown payment DHS illegitimately claims I've owed since 2008.

So. You women discussing how best to discuss condoms, and the best redecorating for after dealing with the father of YOUR kids, with all your double standards, and demands of entitlement, your gripes about yout ex still not having been completely ruined, and or totally alienated and estranged by YOUR kids.
Well...I hope that while you are having your cake AND eating it too, that you choke on every damn crumb of it - as it's EXPELLED from the same end you all keep your values.
You make me want to VOMIT. May you wake up one day and realize that you have somehow managed to SHIT IN YOUR OWN MOUTH.

Hi all. I have spent 2 1/2 of the past 3 hours gleening this site. I must admit, there are a few very informative writeups, penned by some rather insightful contributors. I have even bookmarked enough for future reading to warrant the creation of a dedicated folder.

This is my first comment
here, publicly anyway, borne from my need to expel the blood I now choke on from the biting of my tongue due to the accumulation of crap that underlies the majority of your little woe-is-me, how do we cope, discuss condoms, force our kids to tolerate the new beau because the house needs repaired before you take the vacation that you had planned and began financing ten months ago with your now ex-husband, whom you wrote about in your article: how can I keep my ex from bothering me with annoying calls and texts to our kids while we're on vacation.

That missing half hour of the past 3 hrs? I spent that 30 minutes meditating and purifying my thoughts from the pre Madonna crap most of the regulars here incessently regurgitate.

Yeah...I can hear you loudly and clearly: "Great! Another disgruntled male.."
Your erred contention: That we men, despite our flaws, are your kids' FATHERS.
I see a nauseating affinity for generalizing all males as owing everything to you, skirting responsibilities, wrecking your homes, ruining your credit, and "HELL YEAH! 12 key points to make sure no stone is left unturned in the pursuit of a full bloodletting of his vascular system in the courtroom, because he isn't paying for your son's college.
Nevermind the fact that he struggles to buy groceries to feed himself, and fuel to continue getting himself to work, because between paying the mortgage on YOUR dreamhome, the monthly health insurance premiums for your kids, your alimony, and child support that the bastard is behind on, he lives on 30% of his net. You conveniently ignore the taxes that he pays on what he pays on all of the above; why shouldn't you? You receive all of the above - tax free!
He never sees his kids because he works over 50 hrs a week, is too exhausted to TRULY ENGAGE his kids - no your kids - as they now want little to do with dad, what with the alienation created by your countless belittling of your ex-wasband, on coupled with their inability to comprehend the numerous dillemas that have reduced their Dad to a mere shell of what he should be.

What on earth compels me to blow up like this, in the midst of strangers?
BOTH my wives were cheaters. Neither had any issues with taking the infant child that I fathered with each of them, over to the other mens' place, after I would leave for work most every morning; neither saw anything wrong with having my kid in the other guy's bed with them either. By their own admission, "they're babies, they didn't know the difference." Neither could seem to comprehrehend that the real issues at hand went far, FAR deeper than the cognitance of an infant! Naturally, having been in bed most of the day, neither wife would be ready for any type of evening activities normally present at the day's end of a functional family unit. I'll assume I needn't elaborate on how mothers who stay in bed until early afternoon potty train toddlers. Suffice it to say that my son, the younger of my two kids, trained himself - he said he wanted a motorcycle. I told him about hiw big boys who ride motorcycles also wear big boy pants. 4 days later, he was through with fuzzy, matted, saggy diapers; perhaps some of you may actually realize that reference.
My first wife and her boyfriend attemoted to move her and my daughter out while I was at work. I happened to get off early when they were half-done.
My second wife just left. Called her mother, took our son and her two girls (half-sisters), and left - left all their clothes and belongings - then led others to believe that I refused to let them have any of it. The only one of us doing any witholding was her, with my son. Repeated calls to my lawyer would finally produce my son after 3-5 days, usually.
I'd pick him up at her new residence, which wreaked of the raw sewage that pooled under the house, and gaze in disbelief at the fuzz of mold growing on the floors, from the constant moisture of said sewage, as she rummaged through the mountain of filthy clothes mixed with the feces of a half dozen cats and two dogs who were unable to clean their own litter box, or open the doors to get outside to use the yard. While searching for our son's clothes (always accumulated there because she never laundered them) she would incessantly scream at me how he would have clothes if I weren't such a dick and keeping them all.
My calls to OK CPS ultimately ended with the accusation of me making "malicious claims". Perhaps it was because that house she was in was also her lawyer's rent-house. Incidently, her lawyer was later proven to have extorted his clients' accounts. He fled to Lake Texoma, and deposited a chunk of lead into his skull.
My should be ex never retained nee council, and oddly enough, after some months of my getting nowhere with the court, our custody case "stagnated" and my lawyer withdrew as my council - once I had bled out, so to speak... In hindsight, I really should have expected that - you see, the judge was my wife's lead poisoned lawyer's cousin.
Oh, that rent house with the private cesspool, was deeded to my wife by that judge's sister.
At this same time, the parenting plan set forth by the state of MT, with my first wife, for our daughter, required the usual child support obligation that we Dad's are usually awarded, and also the full responsibility of healthcare coverage. BCBS costs the same for 3 dependents as it does for one, so naturally both of my kids were covered. For those who missed that... I had acquired health insurance for my daughter through BCBS of MT, and my son and I both were on the policy, as residents of OK. I was court ordered to provide coverage for my gaughter from my first marriage, in MT, but voluntarily covered my son, from my second marriage, in OK, because of well, common sense. There was no court order - there wasnt even a divorce or parenting plan yet.. stagnated case, remember.. It seems that laying around all day, soaking up sewage and animal feces doesn't pay all that well, so my SHOULD BE ex wife went to the DHS and git on the FS program. She also had two daughters - NOT mine, who needed healthcare coverage.
So, we all know the story: single mom gies to DHS, applys for and gets Food Stamps, and Medicaid for her daughters and herself, my son has coverage through BCBS of MT. OK DHS Caseworker concludes that the best course of action for all involved is to put my son on their rolls as well, medicaid coverage is, you know, so much mire reliable than anything willfully provided by those deadbeat Dads - he could get mad at you next week and cancel that boys coverage, so we'll just prevent having to deal with that later, and include him on the same case # right now - so we dont have to worry about dad leaving us hanging..
So now, what happens when single mom and 3 kids get FS and Medicaid? DHS CSS branch persues the father/s for Child Support! Does not make one iota of fly crap that there is NO divorce, NO parenting plan, NO support order and that Dad is still paying 500+ dollars a month for BCBS coverage that includes that very child. Also, this BCBS policy was 8 YEARS OLD!! My son was only 3!!
So now... NOW I am the standard OBLIGED father as far as OK DHS is concerned. They relentlessly order anf summon me EVERY 70 - 90 DAYS for their BS TRUMPED UP Child Support order. Every 90 days I miss time at work, because I am summoned and ordered to appear. I show up, present the.. um..FACTS... leaving them with no choice but to dismiss their support order - for another 60 days, at which time they repeat the entire process. This continued for 22 MONTHS, by then I was no longer even in Brokelahoma, but was happily a MT resident once again - as was my son, 80% of the time. However, his mother and I still haf no divorce, etc. and unfortunately I depended on our verbal agreement for that 80%.
Next, in Nov of 2010, my son is 3 mos shy of being 9, Xmas is just around the corner. I fly him to OK to let him spend his school break with his Mom and two half sisters there. The return airfare is never used.. she keeps him, gets her district court in OK to grant temp custody of him, claiming that I never came to get him - abandonment. The Child Support BS fires up again. Except now their prospective booty is 35% of $4800-$5000/month for child support. I call the OK Attorney General, and also take a week off work to go deal with brokelahoma. Within 20 minutes of getting to that crap town, in my should be ex wife's house, there is a knock on her door, and a male voice referencing my full legal name. Well hell I've no doubt you all know what he did for a living. Yeah I had a good paying job now. Only had it for 4 months by then though. I was far from dripping in greenbacks. I was broke.. By the 4th day of my week off I still had not even been allowed to speak to my son on the phone - hell, it had been 3 1/2 months since I flew him to OK out of kindness, generosity to his mom and half sisters, and love for my son. I did this with my FIRST paycheck from that awesome job I stumbled into. I easily could have kept him there with me that xmas, and he'd still have had his half sister here in MT to celebrate with too - he has 3 half sisters, in case you hadnt put that together..

So OK is trying to award her FULL custody, and leave my son and I with 6 weeks in the summer, because I "abandoned" him afterall.. I needed a lawyer...FAST. A damn good one too.. I called my employer for help - 4 month new employer, at that. 3 days left of my unexpected emergency week off, I ask my boss of less than 17 weeks for a $10,000 loan!! At this VERY MOMENT, Sept of 2016, I - a grown man - am still brought to the point of full on crying tears dripping from my beard, simply from the 6 year old MEMORY of that man asking how and where he should wire it to - without hesitation..
I told him I would need to work that out upon speaking to whichever attorney I could find and retain for ten grand. I told him I'd let him know within 24 hrs, as to where to wire it.
Within two hours of securing that guarantee of ten grand I so desperately needed, I had a moment of rational clarity. The ONLY way that $10,000 was going to get my son in that seat next to me back home to MT was by using it not on retaining counsel, but by hiring a fricking hitman..
My boss received that call from me only 16 hrs into that 24 that I had told him. I thanked him again for his faith in me, his support, etc., but that he need not send it. I could not use it as planned.
I called my should be ex, requested that she contantact her cleft-note lawyer, I wanted to waive my entrance with counsel, and wished to meet with him to sign...
My son had not been allowed to even call me, nor I him, since 8 days after I saw him off at Logan airport in Billings, MT. He had missed 3 WEEKS of school in the time his mom had him. I just wanted him in that seat next to me.
I signed those papers while under DURESS.
His mom had a sudden need to secure her "look, see how generous I am son" facade, and had her lawyer rewrite the order to allow for joint custody. 1st semester of scool with me, in MT; 2nd semester with her, in dopelahoma. I was certain, there wad no way in hell. I'd been trying to get the court to see that she was not only narcissistic, but very likely also legaly insane.. To my total dismay, so was that District Judge there in dopelahoma - no issue at all with such a concept.
The 3 yrs after, our son would miss at most, 1 day of school 1st semester in MT, then miss no LESS than 20 the 2nd semester, in OK with mom. I never figured out how to get the DA there to do his (then, on the 3rd yr)/her job, and prosecute for truancy..at the very least!
My ex, is is constant contempt of 7 of the 12 provisions that SHE authored. I am now partially paralyzed in my righ arm (&right handed), cannot work. Hell, I can barely hit the toilet - never used my left hand for that.
My son has been here with me since April of 2015, now a freshman. I can no longer affird those fast flights I used to provide for HIS convenience. Thankfully his mom hadnt insisted on that in thise papers she had drawn up. I just wish she would read her own work. She insists that shes having me thrown in jail for keeping him from her. I point out #8 in her papers, "mutually aggreed upon halfway point" she tells me I need to re read them, she never would have had that put in..
I am now also on FS, and Medicaid.
The real kicker: DHS has not ONCE ooened any child support case against her...now that the shoe is TRULY on the other foot, there "are no grounds" they say.
Yet somehow I STILL OWE just over $68 interest on $0.00 in arrears on some unknown payment DHS illegitimately claims I've owed since 2008.

So. You women discussing how best to discuss condoms, and the best redecorating for after dealing with the father of YOUR kids, with all your double standards, and demands of entitlement, your gripes about yout ex still not having been completely ruined, and or totally alienated and estranged by YOUR kids.
Well...I hope that while you are having your cake AND eating it too, that you choke on every damn crumb of it - as it's EXPELLED from the same end you all keep your values.
You make me want to VOMIT. May you wake up one day and realize that you have somehow managed to SHIT IN YOUR OWN MOUTH.

My ex husband refused to send my daughter back home after a summer visit with him and told me that if I wanted her home I had to find an attorney, which I did. Of course it cost me over $7000 to pay for an attorney and he was held in contempt of court and his child support was increased, however he is now over $8000 in back support and I have yet to see a penny. He continues to post things on facebook about his new jeep, his new girlfriends, constantly traveling etc. I work 50+ hours a week to support my daughter and keep a roof over our heads and try my hardest to give her the things she needs while he sits back and lives the life and never helps. I have a court ordered judgment on child support and a court ordered judgment that he owes me $2000 in attorney fees and yet I have gotten nothing. Is there anything I can do to enforce this without it costing me more money.

Actually, this affects women too. Not every women is the primary caretaker of the former couple's child. Sometimes it is the men who have that responsibility while the ex-wife is the one paying support.

Paul, statistically...women even without custody of their children will go above and beyond to support their children. You sound ridiculous and entitled. It's about the kids, not the parents. Grow up!

Yes it is. The childs life is more important than the fathers and the mother's too.

The men that do not want responsibility of a child have no business having sex with women. Plain and simple.

But since this man did and had children, it is his responsibility to take care of his own mess. If He doesn't pay for his responsibility, then she is on welfare and then YOU hve to pay for his responsibilities. Would you prefer that? I think not.

Child support is financial slavery, a very real form of slavery. All of the justifications for it are just that, not an argument that it isn't slavery.

As uncomfortable as it is, there is no justification for forcing someone, at threat of force, to work or pay money to someone else (this is called debtor's imprisonment). The child's life is no more important than the father's.

Women are the only people who have the power to decide if a life comes into this world. As such, 100% of the responsibility falls to them.

If you want participation from fathers, you need to work with fathers to gain their cooperation.

When you bring in the state to beat up and threaten the father, you make an enemy of him, which even under the best of circumstances will be damaging to the child.

This whole thing stinks of women being ubermensch and men being untermensch.

Funny, whenever obligors get to be about 10% female, we start hearing how awful the whole concept of child support is.

My heart goes out to all those poor woman with deadbeat father's. I'm sorry you have to struggle as you do with little or no help. It's a shame.
I'm not sure why you have so much difficulty with getting your money? I know here in Alberta if I don't pay my support they will seize my bank accounts, take my licence, my passport and garnish my wages all within 5 weeks of non payment.
I'm all for paying for my children, but there needs to be an equitable balance of how we treat the men that are good, honest, decent and hardworking that make every effort they can to comply. This system is strict and may be needed, but there's no allowance for hard times if they strike. We all know things can happen at any time.
If the economy is bad and these men lose their jobs, it creates a whole new series of problems for the parents and the kids.
It's not fair to both parties in the end and has led to an increase in the suicide rate in men. If all these things are enforced as they are here in Alberta, nobody wins.
No child should ever be without a parent or the resources to live a good life.
for every story of a woman struggling with stress, raising kids and struggling to survive, there's a story of a man living in his car trying his best to survive and pay his child support while trying to keep employed.
It appears the "True deadbeats" always seem to get away with things while many other men live with a noose around their neck waiting to be tightened the first sign of problems. If a good man is paying with a history of making his child support payments and gets laid off from work, how should we handle this? If he was still living in the house and not divorced the whole family would share the burden and stress.
Typical of our society these days. A select few ruin it for the rest of the good decent people in the world.
What we really need is a group of both men and woman that can see both sides of this problem to work with these child support programs and come up with fair and just solutions. The problem is both sides seem bitter and neither can empathize. Not all men are deadbeats. Not all woman are victims.

Does anyone know about any cases where an ex was criminally charged with neglect or child abuse for not supporting their child (for 16 years) in Canada?
Thank you
Also I am in the process of involving my MLA and MPP with this as I feel their is a fundamental flaw in the system that is in place supposedly to protect my child.
I would love anyone to get a hold of me and tell me their stories so I am better prepared and have my facts straight.

I have 3 children who almost in their 30's. I have 3 ordered court support papers on the children's father. He's paid about 12 times in the last 29 years. The state of Texas is not the best at getting FATHER'S who owe. And they know where hes worked at and where he lives. He works for DIRECTV. And worked as a undercover NARC. Why can't they make him pay me some thing? Even though the kids are grown

I had a daughter with a falsely accused sex offender but he's really nice and our daughters name is Reghan Taylor Peterson,but I think I'm having my second baby with him again also. Plus he's a deadbeat dad and has been paying the wrong person to pay for our daughters child support payments and abandoned me during my first pregnancy also, but he says he loves me and wants to marry me, but then changes his mind a lot and does hit me and yells at me also though. Also I was wondering is it illegal to abandon your pregnant girlfriend by ignoring my daughters and I finances and wishes?Also should I leave this man and should I really marry him?
Plus he won't let me sign the rental contract and I feel controlled by him also.

I know exactly how you feel and have been dealing with it for over 9 years. I have 3 children with my ex and my twin sons, who are the youngest are now getting ready to graduate high school and want to go off to college. It was one thing struggling all these years to put a roof over our head, now I have to somehow figure out how to put a roof over both of their heads while attending college away. I don't want to kill their dreams, but I can't for the life of me figure it out. I have been honest and upfront with everything and my ex has broken laws, not followed orders and now I don't know what to do. I am so stressed out every day. I wish I could come up with a solution. It is not fair that the boys should have to suffer for what their father feels is his entitlement not to follow. how do you teach kids to follow the law and be upstanding when their father doesn't and gets away with it.

My ex husband is claiming homeless but is very able bodied. Refuses to do anything for his son. But he drags me to family court to see his son. The Miami-Dade system is so screwed up. He yells at judges an has done nothing they ordered him to do for the past 7 years. Miami Dade told me there is nothing they can do, they actually got the nerve to send me a letter saying he said he is angry at me an he may have emotional issues. I have more than emotional issues. Words cannot describe how I feel about child support. Where is the support ??? Put him behind bars where he belongs.

I have a 14 year old son and have paid from day one. I'm now dating a woman who lives with me and her 7 year old daughter does to as well. She is battling her ex for support whom hasn't paid a penny in 5 years and only wants to see her every other weekend. I just wanna know what kind of so called man lets a real man put a roof over there kids head, food in her belly, and clothes on her back??? I'm so pissed at this point. He won't even pay 20 bucks a week!!!! And she has already paid a lawyer but it's still in the process. Now the deadbeat won't tell her how much he makes and the food Mary he works in so now she has to pay more!!!

I have been battling with my ex and the state of Tennessee over child support for the past 4 years. He is currently $8000 behind in child support and because he has signed up for his disability they just keep continuing his court date. In the meantime, he is enjoying his fishing boat, houseboat, and all his hobbies while I work every minute I can to support our daughter. My ex thinks he is hurting me by not paying what he should but our daughter is the one who suffers the most. I just don't understand how he can continue getting away with this and there's nothing any one can do????

My 24-year old son's "dad" disappeared when he was approximately 1 year old. Several unsuccessful attempts were made to garnish wages for child support and then he seemingly disappeared. He resurfaced in 2014 by contacting my son through Facebook. I called the Dept of Child Services in the county where the divorce was finalized but they stated their assistance stops at the age of 18. Do I have any recourse to capture back child support?

What can i do to gorce childsupport to force the father to take care of my grandson...it an case on him but he claim he not working ive beleive he useing another ssc#...cuzz the other baby monma recieve payment but i dont i help my daughter pay for everything for my grandson please tell me what can i file i cant afford no attorney

This is from the adult daughter of a wealthy man who was handed a successful family business. My father beat my mother, killing 2 babies in utero and brain injured her, then left us in poverty for a prostitute, who he impregnated. During my parents divorce, he paid off the judges and took them on cruises and got a support order for $35 per week. His annual salary was $1,000,000. He left me to be raised by great grandparents in a 2 bedroom, one bath bungalow in Detroit on a street with bookend crack houses. Mom couldn't hold a job because the memory loss was so severe, and by age 7 it was my responsibility to care for her while grandma went to work every day. My clothes came from the Salvation Army or hand me downs, and shoes never fit quite right. As I grew up, I was pretty, and lived in fear of being raped or murdered in the neighborhood, as 2 of my schoolmates had ended. Dad lived in the high rent district, owned 36 movie theater screens and 3 restaurants, financed a blonde, brunette and redhead with luxury homes, sports cars, beautiful clothes and lavish trips - and supported their children, sending them to the best schools, he even bought a pony for one of them. When I finally met him when I was 13, I asked him to help us out of the neighborhood and he replied "You're husband will buy you a house." He picked me up from the little house in Detroit once a month, driving his Mark VI luxury vehicle, and took me to beautiful restaurants, where one of his women awaited him. I watched him tip the Matre'd a $100 bill to sit at a table. I sat across from his woman of the evening who sported a $1000 outfit that complemented his custom tailored suit made by the same tailor hired by Henry Ford II. I squirmed uncomfortably in my hand me down tattered dress and shoes. He drank 2 Club Manhattans, a bottle of wine, and Galliano Stingers, and called my poor mother a whore. His words were "If I had a nickel for every time your mother was poked, I'd be a millionaire." Then, he laughed and said "and I am a millionaire!" Afterwards, he drove me to a beautiful large house with tall white pillars and manicured grounds with lavish gardens and stated "This is where I live, but I can't take you in because my wife and I are getting a divorce." Then he drove me back to the little house in Detroit and put a $20 bill in my hand, and said goodnight. He never did adjust the child support, and mom was never well enough to do anything about it. I never did get to live in a safe neighborhood, never had a vacation, never knew what it was like to have anything I could call my own. I got through college on scholarships and became an RN, and finally got my mom and grandma and I out of that dangerous neighborhood. Dad is 94 now and lives off the meager profits of a drive-in theater, and a hidden tax sheltered account with Berkshire Hathaway stock that he accumulated with the inheritance and trust his father set up for him and his children, a part of which I have never received. He gets a stipend from the VA for his work in WWII, where he learned to kill with his bare hands - like he killed his 2 unborn children. His attorney, business partner and wife#5 all stand in line to receive his wealth, insurance policies and business. His wife wholeheartedly assures me that there is nothing left for me. Funny thing, dad always told me he loved me, and I always wanted to believe him. It took years for me to admit the truth to myself that dad was emotionally, psychologically and financially cruel and abusive. He manipulated me into believing that if I asked him to share his wealth, that I was a bad child, only wanting his money - and I never, ever asked because I wanted his parental love and acceptance. It's taken years for me to feel self worth and deserving of an abundant, prosperous life. I've struggled with a lifetime of never feeling quite good enough, and always afraid to ask for more. Parental financial abuse is detrimental to a child's psyche. It creates deep wounds that are shrouded in the subconscious. I'm lucky, because I have the spiritual fortitude to break through the illusion my father created for me. Now, I help others heal their own childhood wounds as a spiritual counselor. There is justice, and, ultimately, self-love and self-compassion. Love and light to all the children

I'm a child of a single mother and a deadbeat dad. He left when I was 4 (my brothers were 3 and newborn) and moved across the country and had nothing to do with us but instead dodged paying support. I have gone without so much because of this. I really wish I could see him rot in jail. Because on top of him avoiding child support he is abusive as well... He has since returned to our state 18 years later!! And is Lee gong off everyone... I hate him and wish I could ring him dry. He left before my first day of school and returned the day before my youngest brothers graduation. He sickens me. I was wondering if anyone had any tips for me getting even? Or getting him in trouble?! I sound like a bad person but in all honesty I'm a good person trying to take down this asshole that robbed me of so much...

I have to agree with alot of people when they say "deadbeat parent". More and more fathers these days have custody of their children than before.

I've had primary custody of my child ever since my ex and I went our separate ways almost five years ago. Even though the court ordered her to pay child support and I even went so far as saying that I would simply give her the money back since I didn't want nor have any need of her money, yet she's never paid any. She's never spent more than two days a month with the child until recently, when she hasn't even called him in over three months.

She has had several delinquent notices every other month for lack of child support but the courts never seem to do anything. So I truly don't believe there are any real consequences involved.

I always believed that men abandoned their families or responsibilities, however, over the last few years I've seen just as many women doing the same. I tend to think the values of the current times are horrible when I compare them to the times of my parents and grandparents when responsibility meant something. People are far too selfish these days and seem to be in way ready to have or raise children. At least there are some of us whether man or woman that do step up and fill the void of the selfish parent that simply does not with to deal with their own children.

Rather than saying a Deadbeat dad lets say a deadbeat parent since men are also affected by women not paying. I am living homeless, an executive of three children that I solely support and have done financially for there entire lives. My exhusband is very wealthy. He has demoralized me and threatened me both him and his family, threatening to destroy my career should I bring awareness to my situation because he seeks to destroy me emotionally, spiritually, mentally and physically in front of the world. Calling me the same names I left him for. Sometimes all we have as the parent that suffers in the wake of this abuse is Karma. The belief that their loss will one day take over their being and they will crawl on their knees as they have forced others that they committed to care about. I left my husband because he denied the importance of his family and his role. I wont take his poison into my future and I have to believe that I will find a way forward that honors life and the beauty of my potential and my children.

I love the way all these articles are about "deadbeat dads" you know I am owed thousands and thousands of dollars in back child support because I am a excellent father and my girls mother REFUSES to pay her full child support for years. Even stole a workers comp lien. NOTHING EVER happens. She knows the game pay $50 bucks a month of the $709 owed every month and that keeps the Family Support off her back because she is not " a full month behind." Bottom line Dads step up and take care of their children when the MOTHER is a deadbeat. I am just tired of all the laws, forums and so on being about the "Father"

My ex husband has been refusing to pay maintainance and visits his son once in 3 months. The one that bothers me the most is the school fees which he has refused to pay his half saying that i did not acknowledge him when i took my son to the school andso he is not paying for it. I want to know if he is right and am wrong or if there are chances for me getting him to pay.. i need your advice

All of you women who are so eager to have your ex's thrown into jail listen up. The main reason jail time is not seen is because a court recognizes that a jailed parent cannot pay child support. Also any jail time would in the future negatively affect a jailed parents chances of finding future employment. How?? An employer hires employees based on how that person would positively or negatively affect his or her company. So what does that mean? A person who was jailed for any reason, even if for non payment of child support is often looked down on by society as a criminal. Nobody wants a criminal working in their company. It's bad for the brand and for public relations. In stead of blaming judges, try blaming society instead. Also think of how your child could be affected. If your child is very young, they may not understand what happened to dad and even if they do, they very well might view it as their fault. The number one priority in all of this is your child, and how it affects them and not your personal vendetta with the other parent. just remember it takes two to make a child and both parents in a child's life is far better than just one, no matter how you are feeling. The judges are trained to understand all of this and will make their ruling based on what is best for the child, and not your own ego....

My soon to be ex wife and I haven't divorced, but she is and my girls are living with the looser low life she having an affair with. Yes I was the sole provider, bread winner and now still make 3 time more then her little crappy part time job or holiday helper job at Khols department store. She has put three senseless protective orders and restraining orders to the point where the divorce court has told her to knock it off. I had 3K in back support waved do to the emotion and physical scares my son and I face while our lives were disrupted in my Westport beach front home by false arrest and brought 1hr north to a tiny shit hole place called Bantam CT which I never heard of until one day police arrive at 12am and said I violated some restratinig order I was never served. it's been hell woth Bantam courts ever since arrested 30 days latter after every court date Ive attended their. cause more charges that should have never been broughten against me. After My son went to his second trauma therapy session I was told the worst nightmare a father of an abuse boy by his step mom would ever want to here. the words of sexual abuse. Her lawyer dropped and she hasn't had anyone who is interested in representing her pro Bono since she has no money. even if she did my lawyer scares them away. 9 months latter I've heard about 30 counts of abuse and therapist have a Narrative stating sexual abuse but won't allow me to use it for criminal charges against her. My goal is to get full custody and get them away from this child abuser who dcf has 250 page documentation of 17 counts of abuse stem to her. I am a great father who wants to provide but Bantam CT court system are as corrupted to the point I was arrested for sending a check to help support. the cops say I violated the no contact part of the PO. I even had this corrupt police station say I violated the order by being in the same court that day . enter your message here...

My ex and I divorced in 2010. We have triplets together. He makes three times more than I do, so when we tried to do a joint custody agreement and he found out that he would have to pay me child support and I didn't have to pay him anything, he fought me tooth and nail for full custody. I couldn't afford an expensive lawyer like his, and I couldn't afford to keep paying my lawyer for an extended custody battle. We finally agreed that he would have physical custody and we would have joint legal custody. I was awarded liberal visitation.
In 2013, our triplets accused him of child abuse and neglect. The accusations were substantiated by the police, and Child Protective Services and the Family Court stepped in. Although I have never abused or neglected the children, the court did not readily give me custody because they said that their goal was to reunite the children with their father. After TWO years of court battles, the court finally admitted that my ex is NOT a good father, and awarded me custody.
The court then ordered that the ex pay child support for our triplets, but before the order took effect officially at the Child Support Enforcement Agency, the ex quit his job, sold his home to a family member and fled the US to avoid paying it. He fled to the Philippines, which is not one of the countries who participate with the US in finding dead beat dads. Now my attorney is trying to go after his retirement, but we fear that he has already cashed it out.
I am very upset that the justice system moved so slowly that it gave him time to plan an escape! My triplets are devastated at the knowledge that he abandoned them.
I have a full time job and work long hours. I can't imagine having to get a part time job, as I am already exhausted at the end of each day, and I'm not so young anymore! Besides this, the only time I get to spend with my children are the few hours after work before they go to bed, and the weekend.

My wife left me, it was her idea. Not mine. I paid all the bills, put food on the table, provided a above average health care plan. I went all out, I emptied out my savings to support my wife and my first born when he was born. A long story short, my wife left me for a guy who mows lawns for a living. She gave me no choice but to divorce her, I tried to fix the marriage but she was not going to let that happen. Once the Divorce went legal she turned to me like I was a check book, and I am not. I am a human being whose first wife has ruined my experience with my first born all for her vanity and her "wants". So now I am paying 600$ a month for child support and roughly 450$ a month for day care costs, I also proved insurance for my son (Dental, etc).

My question is, since this whole BS show was her idea. it was her idea to take my son away and be with a man who was not my sons father. Why should I pay a single dime to her. She uses my money for everything but my son, her new man has all new cloths and a new car (newish). She only works part time so I know she cant afford it. I am getting killed. A part of me wants to just break things off 100%, fuck the child support payments and start a new family with a woman who respects her husband and her family.

I know the story usually goes like this: The man is the loser and the woman can do no wrong. In this case, I did my part and she honestly made a decision that puts my son at risk since she is now well below the poverty line.

My Ex took me off the pill when I wanted to go to university & then when i got pregnant he said he changed his mind and after trying to abort my child after I refused to have one he continuesly threatened n beat me to the pont i was to scred to go after support & now that I am a grown woman n so is my daughter is there anything we can do ?? to get what we deserve ?

I am a single mother whom left a very abusive relationship. My sons father (the abuser) will not send a wooden nickle let alone a dime to help me raise a 15 year old whom is growing like a weed. I recently had my car repossessed to take care of school supplies and cloths for my son whom is a sophomore now. My son even stated he would get a job but you have to be at least three months before 16 in order to work in this state. I am currently waiting on the state that he resides in to pursue him. I filled in August of 2014 and they stated they are still locating him even though I told them he has a FB page and I gave them where he allegedly works. I just what like to know what do I have to do in order for him to pay

$21,642.81 - 15 years worth of going to court, getting an order, contempt of court hearings, 30 days in jail on work release then he DEMANDS that I give him the kids when he wants them - back to court for custody issues, he gets visitation, has no place to keep them when he gets them so he FORCES my son to lie to me about where they are, he gets caught, court does nothing although he put them in harms way - and how many times has he seen them with his COURT ORDERED VISITATION IN 3 YEARS??!! Maybe 12 x!! And refuses to give up rights or even let me change their names although THEY have begged to do so. WORTHLESS MORON - RICKY COGDELL GASTONIA NC

My wife has to pay her ex child support. She made some payments but was in the rears by 3500. They put her in jail...

Her ex hides money and our attorney Florence Brummer in Anthem AZ did nothing. She could not even get the judge to hear her testimony on how when they were married how he hid funds from the IRS. Our judge is judge Brotherton in Maricopa county.

This is horrible as I also pay the kids Insurance not the lowlife Father Paul Riley....

I have been divorced for over 8 years and have three beautiful children. My ex-husband has never put forth any effort for child support which he is arrears for 45 thousand. I DO NOT CARE about the money. My children suffer daily because they wonder if they are not good enough for him. He is a drug user who always has time for drugs and the people who go with it but none for our children. We have set up visits, Christmas times, birthday times, to no avail. He just doesn't care. This leaves my children upset and at times outlandish because they can't process it all. My question is there any way to put a no contact order in place because he goes to jail, starts sending letters and calling getting their hopes up. Just to get out and ignore them again!!!

For years now I have been supporting my daughter and two grandsons,
I am retired 68 years old no job and I just cannot do it any longer.
The courts are of no real help !
My question is can I sue him myself to try and get some support for his kids and ex-wife ?
Looking for any and all help that I can get it thank you very much.

Its amazing the things you read online , i have custody of my two daughters ibe been searching for them since 1999 the mother ran away with them an it amazes me that no one ones to get involved to help i keep geeting passed on either o its a familycourt matter is what the police say the courts say shes out of jurisdiction and now thats shes in jurisdiction the same run around but yet there so quick to try to collext child support got the first letter today . But yet i have full custoday and my two daughters where basically kidnapped by there mother .

Ladies keep searching social media .. I found my deadbeat ..once I figured out what his social media name was. All his accounts, twitter, facebook, reverbnation, Instagram even dating profiles! Linked to the name. I was able to locate the state and city he is in.... There's nothing stopping me now, I'm a mom on a mission! Our children deserve the financial security these guys should be helping with! Don't stop till u find them!

I'm a single mother with 3 kids and my ex is paying absolutely nothing. He is hiding and I don't know where to find him. Even with the school of the kids I can tell them nothing about him because I don't know where he is or his cell no. He is making as if he is not existing. But still I'm looking after the kids with a struggle because he is a deadbeat dad.

I'm a single dad raising three kids my x wife is behind over seven grand and the answer I get from domestic relations is well some women are geared that way they do nothing to make her pay so please change your heading to read dead beat parents cause not all fathers are deadbeats yes there are a lot of deadbeat mother's out there to.

Well Problems, you are a dead beat dad, Before you jump, make sure that your children are made beneficiaries of a huge insurance policy that will pay out, for your stupidity! It's not your children's fault!

I agree completely. My ex is a deadbeat also. I am driving 5 hours to make sure he gets to visit and he hasn't paid child support her whole life. Tn court threatened to send him to jail and never did. I wasted my money on contempt hearings. I'm about to file through SC child support enforcement and hopefully get something done. My daughter is about to be 8 and I should've gone it a long time ago ! The state of Tn doesn't do anything to make sure child support is paid !

My sons father got away scott free.,in 1981 I had custody of my son after a brief marriage and a child being born as a result. His father skipped town and skipped out when ever he was located. The child support order was for 340.00 a month. It would have helped a lot. My ex remarried and quickly had two more boys he named after himself. It appears they divorced in 89. It then appears she had same problem getting ex to pay child support. My ex owes me more than 100,000 dollars. His ex he owes 60,000 & some change. My son is now 35. My ex I found out lives only two miles from my son. He owns a house and nice cars and trucks. I looked his house up and he lives in the couple million dollar homes that he inherited in 2005 from an aunt who had no children. Why wasn't that attached to paying off the women who gave up careers and social networking, dates, etc etc to be the only parent raising the children he had to name after himself? What's wrong with this picture? Anyone got any ideas on what I should do?
Thank you

What will happen if my daughter dad don't pay child support for a month? Because he havent sent money to me for my daughter and I don't talk to him at all! So I don't know whats going on him, he haven't sent no checks for this month of November! Please help!

My ex of 8 years is truly a deadbeat dad. He quits every time dhhs sends notice to garnish his wages. He has a girl friend and when he's not living with her as they break up all the time is living a mile down the road with his parents. I work two jobs and have since I divorced him. I have two wonderful children. One is now in college and I am paying for that myself and a senior in high school. My ex owes me thousands in back child support. I am not greedy and would be happy with any amount coming regularly to help. My ex even moved to another state thinking he could get out of paying. Moved back within a month as dhhs caught up with him there. He took a job Corp job thinking they would garnish. They garnished and he quit that after 4 months. He has a contempt order against and if he is not gainfully employed he has to apply to three jobs a week and provide the info on the company he applied to to dhhs. While dhhs followed up to see if applied to companies recently that he said he did. They sent out five letters and they responded that they have never heard of him and he didn't apply. So where does that leave me? What are the next steps? How do I get any of the back child support? I want you to know that I encourage my children to call and visit with their father. He is their dad and you only have one. He hardly ever calls his kids or takes them. He is suppose to them every other week and hasn't done that in years. He lives in same town. My son recently said to me that he is a senior and he isn't going to wait around for his dad to call cause he wants to enjoy his last year of high school with his friends.

It seems like it is about the money and nothing else really. I would be more concerned about my child carrying on that father daughter or father son relationship. Yes, financials help but that is not what I would be grunting and groaning about. I would be more outraged if the father did not want to have anything to do with our child after splitting. At the end of the day children need love. Love does not come from money. A man can shower you and your children with millions and most women would be satisfied and would not be complaining at all and wouldn't even care if the father was in the child life as long as they were getting the money. Most women should not think that when a man splits up from you that he should provide money for your lifestyle to stay in tact, the money is for the child not for the women. I don't even know why it is called child support it should just be called separate mothers support. I think if women would set the agreement up for the father to share joint custody instead of it being I am going to make my self the custodial parent and him the non-custodial parent than this type of thing would not be a problem. Instead the women off the top puts herself as the 100% responsible by making her self the custodial parent to have entitlement to the fathers money, one person cannot take care of two separate households, it is impossible to do. At the end of the day the person who is paying the child support ends up being in a misfortune. I can understand if there is an agreement that both parents will equally pay for the child's expenses that is fair and both parents spend time equally with the child. All the visitation and extra string that custodial parents put in place is ridiculous is it really about the children or about personal feelings. An I can say that child support has a lot to do with not just the child being taking care of, personal feeling of resentment, anger etc. come into play with child support because if it were not that wouldn't be the first thing a so called custodial parent ( made that way), does is run to get court order support. I believe if you have been with a person for long and they were taking care of the responsibilities when you were together I am sure they will when you are not. The reason why it is such a hardship when two split up is because all this court matter. At the end of the day the children are who end up being the one that is hurt behind all of this. An custodial parents don't realize that this program is a money maker for the government they are getting more money than the custodial parent out of having this support program, so it is not really about helping the child be taking care of or helping the custodial parent it is about the state and government receiving monies back for programs to help people who are on the lower income scale. Every time a so called custodial parent puts a so called non-custodial parent on child support you are helping the state and government get money back for the state or government, they already know they are not going to do anything really. An I have seen some of these so called arrearage amounts some of these child support departments are claiming people owe and it is impossible, not even the custodial parent has put that kind of money out for the child and especially if they are under employed custodial parents or living off of welfare or other money that isn't being generated by them. How can a non-custodial parent owe more than the money they make a year, how can a person make 15,000 or less a year but owe 20,000 to 50,000 in arrearage and the child 4 years or under and immediately owe this after they and the custodial parent split up. I'm just saying if parent would agree upon splitting and parent should stop being selfish and making it about themselves and sit down like adults and discuss fair plans that both can agree upon that does not include personal feelings or input but what is really in the best interest of the child and the best interest is to have both parents in there life without the parental drama of the parents, THE CHILDREN ARE ENTITLED TOP THAT and without the bashing of each other to the children. I get so sick of parents doing this crap, it hurts the children at the end!!

My Ex Husband alomst 10 months behind in child support it is order for him to pay child support . He keeps telling child support that he is going to pay , they give him the benefit of the doubt, but he never sends in a payment .He still get's he visition . We had a hearing with Judge Dolores Niber in Putnam county wv September 23,2014. She had cancel the case until January 25,2015. I filed these papers in June ,2014

I'm in a very similar situation and I totally agree with you.. the courts do absolutely nothing to enforce family court orders. I read recently that failure to pay child support for one year may constitute grounds for filing for termination of parental rights (under 'abandonment'). Does anyone know anything about this?? Rather than repeatedly banging our heads against a brick wall, it would seem that this could offer some light at the end of the tunnel if this is true.. ?

forgive your enemies , do good to those who persecute you, and if you find a church and you need to relieve you past mistakes hey mother of kids. My husband has a lauguage barrier and now he is in the land of the free and he has been trying real hard to get work and fulfill his responsibility,,,,,,,you yourself are where you are suppose to be a mother and a father, I know he left you with the kids the housework no relief. but who managed. Are you kids neatly dressed for church and have play clothes that you get mad at the kids for playing..........maybe you work and have to keep yourkids with someone cause their dad left cause he hates that he left maybe he is wrong.....who remarried and still not divorced from run away dads
when will you stop the hound dogs and when will you give this man you understanding better look deeply in youor conscience. Oh girls its hard I know I didn't have lots of kids but my girl was ok till my husband died and left me to homlesss shelter with my daughter,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,yes I am widow but I cant replace the kids father unless you forgive the living dads and forgive the dads who defied the resources of education or medical improvements

what am I getting at would you take him back if he humbled himself or will you really rip him apart and keep him from kids, if he is really rotten and lazy and dont want kids in his life, well can you get a judge to give him a place to take the kids the oldest ones and let him be the father, i am not defending I just want you to want your kids happiness instead of the Almighty dollar which rots and decay and is impossible to salvage, and when you pick the kids see how much he wants them oh of couse go pick the kids up with an officer .and if he seems repented he has to want to work and do the right thing. May the Holy family be your guide dear mothers.................

I was married for 12 yrs divorced for 4 have 4 kids same dad I been at same job for 9 years divorced bc father would not work he is behind 14,000 I kept calling ag but a year later they finally took him to court and he got an attorney has no job but driving a new car his gf has been buying stuff and trying to buy a house to take custody so he don't have to pay nothing, I had to get college money out for my kids to get attorney the ag still won't do nothing pushed it to district court. He won't pay half medical or nothing for kids. It sucks he is out partying and living it up with his girlfriend and no worries bc she pays for his top dollar attorney while my kids don't get what they deserve. Any clues or ideas I can get him to pay or get some money

What about DEADBEAT MOTHERS who use their vagina as a source of income and live off government handouts, spend child support on themselves? What about pregnant mothers who are selfish enough to continue smoking during pregnancy, why are they not charged with child abuse?

Seminole County, FL 's idea of child support enforcement is nadda. A good friend of mine
baby's dead beat dad, let's call him "Dave" "DJ".
Never paid a dime in years. He now free loads off
of friend's in the next county. His claim to fame, his
daddy was and is a dead beat too.

If my Mom had grown a pair and stuck it to my Dad, instead of physically abd verbally abusing me, while I worked 70-80 hours a week to complete 2 college degrees in 30 years--and now at the age of 51 (next week)--I'm too broken down from repeated work injuries, domestic violence, chronic pain--and now I'm being blamed by both my biological parents and my Dad's wife for not working and supporting all three of them and functioning as unpaid domestic help(?). Are they freaking serious??

I loved this article. I completely understand. Jail time may not help get payments made however it will show the father that court orders are not an option but a ruling and need to be followed. I have had my share with these types of matters with my ex husband as well. The courts just drag their feet in any issues such ad these. Excuses seem to be tolerated and court orders thrown out the window as if they didn't even matter.

Interesting tone in this article. One question--how would jail time assist a father in achieving support payments, etc? Doesn't that just complicate the problem--risk of job loss, more money in legal fees, etc. Why are you still so vengeful? Wage garnishment is stringent enough in these cases, often not regarding the father at all or considering his well-being, safety or the children's comfort in visiting with their father. Yup--children need a father to be present and healthy as well. The problem with divorce is....antiquated laws maintained by politicians who see the problem but line their campaign pockets with attorney money. Family law attorneys may be the lowest form of life on this planet.

Where is your anger over the tremendously larger problem of women who refuse contact with the kids to their fathers?

Not a single one of those women, if they even get to trial, let alone convicted, get a fraction of what a dad who is convicted of just being a male receives.

It is called the "female sentencing discount."

Enjoy your equality. It is about time women get the same treatment men have been getting for thousands of years.

Fight your own wars, go down with your own cruise ships, die at work related deaths at 93% of total fatalities (not just 7%), be 97% of war deaths, and don't be the one who will actually get child custody in over 90% of the cases (Yes, that includes joint custody orders because you are still the primary).

What's a matta sweetheart? Equality is not sounding so fun anymore?

Why is it you try and throw a man in prison, when all you really have to do is contact the CSEA (Child Support Enforcement Agency) who will take his driver's license, professional licenses, his tax returns, force his employer to garnish his wages, the list is something like 40 different avenues that you can take!

No, you go straigh for number 41, send him to prison.

Enjoy the fact that men are going to refuse marriage in ever increasing numbers. #womenagainstfeminism (2014) is just women realizing that men are waking up, again like in the 1890s, and are sick of your shiite.

So for thousands of years we never really showed up let alone fired back. Now we are, and millions of women are denouncing feminism, and claiming to support men.

Hilarious.

I married foreign. Glad I did! Because this, you, are representative of American/Western-World women. Garbage, entitled, stuck-up, snobbish little pwincesses.

When they are found in contempt and ordered into custody with a perk amount to get out of jail, is this like bail? Where does that money go? If it goes to the courts, how does this help us? He escaped jail because at the last moment, someone put up the $1000 "perk" payment and now we wait another 30 days to see if he pays.

It is not just the court who won't enforce the collection, but Child Support services in California just told me they are closing the case because they can't collect $85,000 debt because my ex works under the table, does not pay taxes, and basically must cash checks at check cashing places to avoid being in the system. I told the child support services why won't they collect, and they say it costs money to keep him in the system in order to collect anything, i.e. bank, lottery. What a poor system. My children are adults now, and I have 7 grandchildren. But I am going to fight this and write my congressmen to keep this open, just for the principle of the issue.

Ya my father is a deadbeat and he won't pay $45 dollars a week because he's in jail for the 5th time in the past year and he complains about the $45. He got a huge chunk of money from my grandma's passing bless her heart. And I'm wondering what should I do?

I doubt its all one sided. There are two sides to every coin............my ex never let me see my son, told him I was bad. I paid for 12 years, she had me falsely arrested now I cant get a job, and cant pay. Yet she the one who gave me a false criminal record so I cant work tells my son now I am really bad? Hey, I doubt your husband is terrible as you say. Funny so rarely is it men that get custody. You wanted to get your custody you got it, deny access, and then claim you are the victim whatever., America is in a tailspin over women like you always the victims...as for men we are filth? We don't want to pay? you give us false criminal records then cry on the internet we cant pay you..........whatever woman.

First off having a criminal record doesn't make finding a good job impossible. My ex has a couple felonies and to many misdemeanors to remember, but he got a welding certificate in jail and was working for Canam Steel ..making $19 an hour and the court wanted him to pay $888 for 3 kids a month. I told the court that was to much that he needed to live to. Stupid me had no clue what he was making an hour. I ended up settling on $444 a month. Long story short I tried to make it about his boys and not bout money. Even tho he never made my life any easier (stealing my car, money, never working, cheating while I worked and paid all the bills) never watching his kids. A real complete true meaning of a deadbeat. So he quit the $19 an hour bomb ass job he will never have again to let his new wife and mother of two more kids, another boy & lil girl to add to the 3 boys I have, be the bread winner. He was good at letting the women in his life do all the work, bills kids and he just sits home playing his Xbox or Ps4. Yea I find it sad that he can go blow $350 on a wireless headset and a bunch of $60 games (not to mention bll the weed they go thru in a week) but he cant buy our boys xmas or bday gifts let alone school shoes. Our youngest went thru some crazy crazy growth spurts, so much so fast he literally went from 4ft 8 to almost 6ft in less than 6 months...He didn't work for 7 more yrs, racking up 37,000 back child support. We were all close and I didn't push the support because I was doing OK providing for the boys for a while, I didn't want to cause everyone to argue(especially because I don't have any family & my ex, his wife and his grandma by marriage to his grand father, who is like a mother since she raised him from a child. They were all my family to, I grew up in foster care and Gma fought the state to get me emancipated and gained gaurdianship of me when no family wanted me. So needless to say she was like a mother to me. Well times got hard, my youngest son by a different guy ( I thought was the diamond in the rough) (Boy was I even more wrong about him than anything in my life) asked to keep my son while I tended to my sick, dying of aggressive cancer 46 yr old biological mother. With an agreement he wouldn't go after child support (cause I'm paying for 1 & raising the other 2 boys on my own and I wouldn't take our son from him. All good for a while till he met, impregnated and then married a psycho with a son from previous relationship and they had a daughter so they took me to court with a vicious top dollar lawyer who chewed me up and spit me out, bawling my eyes out so hard I couldn't speak. They treated me like trash. So I end up paying more also getting me for old dental bills I had asked over and over If he needed help and he always refused and now waited till he had gathered a huge bill and want me to drop a grand like I got money flowing out my butt. So as the yrs pass and I'm paying what I can (way better than nothing at all) and not seeing him at all cause they pick up and move 8 hours away for a job that was "SO" good he couldn't pass up, yet he quits a couple months after getting up there and halls my ass back in court with his ($5,000 retainer fee lawyer) Thinking I'm good cause I just paid $4,500 from taxes his lawyer says I'm to be held in contempt and sentenced to 30 days in jail. Now this guy( my 2nd ex) was with me for 5 yrs and my youngest by my other ex was only 13 or 14 months old when I first got with him so he called him daddy and he was so amazing with my 3 by my ex, so for him to sit there stone cold with no emotion knowing that if I went to jail my boys would be in foster care or a group home.. it wasn't even like I wasn't paying , I owed 2100 after they got my taxes and my boys father was pushing 30,000 at the time and I couldn't get anything rolling with him yet I paid $4500, owed only $2100 and had soul custody of my 3 boys who only had me to depend on and at the snap of his high paid lawyer I was gonna go to jail. I was in school and his lawyer basically told me to choose, get a paying job or go to jail. Thank god the judge felt some what bad for me and told me to pay another good grace payment of 500. I told the judge how is it fair that my 3 with me struggle so bad that we barely have money for toothpaste & toilet paper, and my youngest doesn't have any idea what struggle is or what the word , without means, in every sport, living in a 4 bd house (that my ex's rich daddy pays for) and we run out of food by end of month, live in a 2 bd lil trailer and can never do any sports or extra circular activity's. So.. I started pushing my boys fathers child support and just as I figured war war 3 broke out, treating me like I committed some kind of crime for making him get off his lazy deadbeat ass and get a job, so everyone hates me, bashes my name, my character and my reputation all over face book saying I'm a drug addict and I'm only going after child support to pay for my habit and my needs. I guess it don't matter he is almost 40g behind and his boys go without or that I have been an ex's "dream" , not raising it as high as they first offered, not excepting alimony for cheating or pressing the protection order or even when I stood up for his ass after he broke in my apartment, stole my car, my cell phone,& money as well as throwing my keys out , and threw the baby seat out so I had to pay to have a locksmith replace my house locks, keys and my car keys .. I have bent over backwards bring the boys to them, they never helped with driving, and they always mooched money from me every time I dropped the boys off I got to were I literally let the boys out and drove off.. but yet I'm trash , scum, and a junkie because after letting him claim all 3 boys on his taxes and wiping out his back child support when he was only 5g behind and his "mom" cashed it by illegally signing my name cause she felt she was owed it because she had my boys for a lil while when my mom got cancer and withered away , even when I was paying as well as giving her the monthly child support from my ex. And I "STILL" paid for my oldest sons braces all by myself. So he miraculously found a job (when it was oh so impossible cause he was a felon) with in 4 weeks of taking him to court on contempt charges and judge giving him a 6month suspended sentence, if he don't have a job and be paying by the next court date which was in 3 months. The dick worked long enough to pay a few payments to cover his ass in court and what pissed me off so much more was the judge treated him like the lowlife he is , during the first hearing but the second hearing he So much so that Jeremy kept getting smart that the judge said he was sick of it and he could just go to jail anyways. But stupid me.. spoke up and asked the judge to please not. I said please ur honor , I didn't come to court to have him thrown in jail". I just want him to have the same options I had. Work , pay or go to jail. Putting him in jail right then wouldn't have benifited anyone. So the judge gave him the suspended sentence.. but the second court hearing u would have thought they was old buddies. The judge didn't require pay stubs for his correct hourly wage. So he lied and said he made way way less. His mother, my boys Gma, they lady I look up to like bother mom decides since I took her son to court she is gonna get me for child support for my oldest that she was sneaky and got guardianship of saying it
was so she could help him get his license. He is 18 making more money than me. She has had him since he was 4 but I have always paid for whatever he needed and I had sole custody until her lil sneaky maneuver. The judge was just gonna dismiss her case, but her stupid case manager stepped in right before the hearing was getting finished and awarded her child support, making it so Somehow I end up paying $50 more than the boys dad paid. He was all giddy.. laughing , high fiving his wife saying ha ha they lowered my support and he dont have to keep health insurance for them. And that I ended up having to pay more than him when I barely make $900 a month. Not even minimum wage. I said I'm disgusted he thinks its funny his kids are gonna suffer even more now. . So he worked a couple more weeks and now has went thru at least 6 jobs and hasn't paid but $100 in the past 3 months. Don't even see the boys anymore or do bday gifts, or even trys to help with my 2nd to th oldests new baby girl. How can he get away with this? He is causing my child support to continue to rise ans putting me at risk for going to jail. So all he did was add more bills to my life and by not paying his , is making things even harder than it already was on me. "How can he be so , out of sight, out of mind"? My boys are so sweet and so generous and understanding.. When they was young they didn't see money they saw daddy and I tried to make that important..now they are older and know the value of a dollar and what his responsibilties should be. They see how bad I struggle.. how bad we struggle cause of him. They are hurt that he don't seem care enough to want them to have more, to have better. Money doesnt make you the better parent but ur not being a good parent if ur not providing what ur child needs. Love dont feed u or keep ur power on. Love dont keep u clothed or buys diapers. So if u are responsible enough to have a child tgen u need to be responsible and provide for them. My ex thought it was ok to have 6 kids and not have a job. And even tho I know that my oldest and my youngest want for nothing I still have a responsibility to provide. I just dont believe that any child should suffer or be without just cause the laws are cold and callused with no heart. Its sad how hard I try to give my two boys a life but they still go without and yet have to have it rubbed im there faces of all the nice things the other two have. Great example»» my oldest just got a big red V8 crew cab truck bought for him( he already bought his own self a piece of shit truck) by my boys step mom, when they wont even help to teach my son that just had a daughter, how to drive much less buy him a car. The two boys I have feel so left out. im just completely fed up. Theres still college for the two oldest ones. Who both are in same grade.. The oldest already has his graduation ring and pictures, the nicest that money can buy butt i'm still trying to figure out how to get them new shoes..

TO STEPHEN STUMP: I didn't read all of the posts, but your dad is definitely NOT a deadbeat. The article is referring to the dads that don't pay and don't attempt to care for their children and actually snub their noses at the court - knowing nothing will be done about it. Your dad although struggling financially, it sounds like he is doing the best he possibly can and he is there for you and your siblings - that is absolutely great! I only wish as much for my children.

everything you say is so true. The dead beat dads are laughing and emotionally hurting the children. We are retired grandparents literally raising our grandchildren.
He just doesn't care and refuses to get a job. Is $10,000 behind and just laughs at everyone thinking anything is going to happen. My daughter works, goes to school and gives plasma to help support the girls.
Please let us band together and get to Washington and on the state level to do something to change this total injustice to our children.

Seeing you refer to dads that don't pay child support as "deadbeats" really irritates me, yeah I know there are moms and dads that refuse to pay child support and most have nothing to do with there kids, but some parents mom/dad struggle enough to keep food in the cabinets and yet still work there asses off just to scrape by, my dad for instance owes a good amount of back child support for me and my twin. Not getting the money that the court says should be paid regularly obviously takes away from stuff I/my brother could have but yet I can't imagine asking my dad to pay as much as they ask being in the postion he's in. Having a criminal record (minor charges) restricts my dad from getting an actuall good job even though he can do about anything and is skillful at It, but all I'm saying is not all dads/moms are deadbeats for not paying child support. My dad does everything he can to give me the stuff I want and actually need and he's one of the biggest influences in my life, hell I'd call him more of a friend it's just I'd rather have a happy life with both my parents as long as there getting by without to much struggle, and imagining a judge deciding to put my dad in jail in my opinion helps nothing. It would cause them to lose everything they've earned over time, and make ststtjng l Ed and getting bac to paying that back child support ten times more difficult. I think it should be handled a more adult manner parent to parent without the court system involved.

My ex is refusing to let me see my children. 8 months now and the court case for contact is only just beginning. My eldest child's head has been messed up now and feels I've abandoned them and doesn't want to see me. Our middle child is taking the flac for now and does but is under intense pressure to not love me any more. And our youngest is only three and a half and I've missed so much of his life. None of them have any idea about what is actually going on. The emotional trauma their going through is horrible, something needs to happen soon. All I have is photos too say good night too. Now though I'm being demanded to pay. I agreed of course but asked for an actual agreement between our lawyers to be made and so it's being claimed I am a deadbeat parent. Am I? Should I just give what ever money and when ever I'm asked even though it's not through my choice or theirs that the kids and I can't see each other. Though it was me that said it's over. There is only so much lying and cruelty I could take. I never thought that it'd end up with me losing the kids completely.

I am 19 & a little pissed at some of these comments. Not ALL men are deadbeats & not ALL women use & abuse the system. I was living on the streets & all I could turn to was my boyfriend (now ex). He started coming home late & leaving me at his house. (Oh excuse me his MOMMYS house). I broke up with him & went back to living in the car with my mom & step father. I didn't have get my period & I let him know. He told me 2 wait til the next month for sure & I did. He went to the pregnancy center & found out I was pregnant & tried to talk me into abortion but I wasn't having that. Still living in the car & with friends he came to see me once & tried to sleep with me instead of talking about our plans with the baby. Knowing I was living on the streets he could care less! We finally moved to a hotel & he promised to pick me up to talk. Did he? No.

I finally called his mommy & told her I was pregnant & she took me n my mom out to IHOP after my doctors appointment & told me some sick ass story about his ex girlfriend being pregnant by her father! Idk what the hell that had to do with me but I could see she makes excuses 4 her deadbeat son! She then let me know he had "trust issues" & didn't think thebaby was his! When iI was Living with them!!!!

Fast fwd to the hospital I text them to let them know. My son was born! They came up there for what?!?! If you don't think a child is yours why showuup? Everyday in the hospital they come up there with a bunch of friends NOT speaking to me or my mother or acknowledging my baby! Knowing I had a csection & wasn't feeling wel
l and he never once asked to help me out!

After I left the hospital he texts me & asked to see him but DIDN'T EVEN BUY THE STROLLER HE PROMISED! My mom put something regarding me being a good mother without him & his mom calls talking about "homeless hoe".

I had a court ordered meeting for child support & he doesn't show up so now I'm waiting for the actual court with a judge. My baby's 3 months now going on 4. I love him to death & that child support isn't to get my nails done & to look cute. No real mother's put thereselves before there children. I don't care if he ever sees him again because he is the most beautiful thing on this earth to me. But he will help me financially because we made him together! And he knows this is his child!

So I pray 4 all the mothers doing the hardest job in the world. (Raising a child alone)

I start college soon so wish me luck.

& to a the good fathers thank you! I hope I marry someone like you someday & give my son a father he needs & that is a good role model 4 him!

i raised my 2 stepsons for 9 years while the MOTHER NEVER helped or paid us a penny. the court never inforced her child support and she was up to owing us 13,000 just in 9 years. Long story short they went to live with her because teenage kids want to live where theres no rules and we were forced by her lawyer to drop all arrears and now she sits on her ass and doesnt work as usual and is getting food stamps and welfare, free insurance,etc.. and thinks we are going to pay her child support. Sadly these parents use their kids as a payday, funny how once they could care for themselves then she wanted to become a mother and sadly stepparents have no rights which is disturbing. we are going to look at that judge and just laugh and show them all of the times that she NEVER paid or helped us and all of the times the judge let her off the hook and we are going to do exactly the same. No 2 wrongs dont make a right but we never got help so i think its only fair that she doesnt deserve help especially since shes lazy and lives off the system and is a drug addict too, She was ordered to pay health and insurance and NEVER did and never had to pay 1 medical bill. We never got assistance or help. The court system is a joke.

Quit having children with worthless pieces of crap because they seem cool to you when they act worthless. Those jerky guys that seem so challenging and dangerous end up being worthless fathers and husbands.

To all of the commenters upset about the gender bias in the blog: The majority of "deadbeats" are indeed fathers. Of all the single parents I know, only 1 is a single father, and he gets much more sympathy and emotional support than the single mothers -- It's ridiculous.

Why not direct your upset words toward the COURTS that do not enforce orders? The courts will happily take your court fees during the long, drawn-out process, but when it comes to enforcing what's best for the child... nothing.

And yes, I work, and have since my son was 3 months old. Who payed for childcare while I worked? me. Who pays for medical care? me.

12 years later, his father is $40,000 behind on child support and will go months without contact with his child.

So, who should be responsible for the psychiatric support as result of this neglect, and why doesn't the court acknowledge that?

Such a biased person! For every deadbeat dad, there is a worthless mother. Let's ignore the fact mothers kill there babies and so forth. I have more faith in the Sasquatch hunters claiming to be experts over your so called expertise.. more like your opinion! What a load of shit

My boyfriend birth father, married his mom when she was 18, and when boyfriend turned 2 years old his dad left his mom, his daughter my boyfriend older sister and then his dad moved out of state to skip child support. 20 years later. My boyfriend now has half brothers and sisters looking him up, telling him how their dad did the same thing to each of their moms. As of right now, my boyfriend knows of, he has 2 half brothers, and 3 half sisters. Possibly another half brother who lives in WV. Halva Junior Ferguson has children ranging from 36 years old to 14 ranging from States as well from OH. WV. VA. and TX That is sicking. Apparently never paid child support for none. He has 7 kids for sure and possibly even more. That's CRAZY!!!! Out of the 7 kids he only raised 3 of them.

Deadbeats, male or female, all are culpable worthless parents. The pinnacle of life is the new generation, children are our legacy, and the horrifying sadness that someone would fail to see, relish, nourish such a wonderful blessing as a child is essentially useless as a human being. I can think of nothing lower.

I'm a single father and quite frankly find this offensive as hell that all there's just instantly get thought of as deadbeats. I work my ass off and have custody of all 3 of my children and my ex-wife doesn't pay shot and doesn't so shit to see out kids.. Not all dads are dead beats that's bullshit how we get thought off when it comes to parenting

All this talk about deadbeat dads not paying child support - what about all the useless moms who don't pay, and get away with it. What about the men who are lied to by woman, and tricked into signing the birth certificate - only to find out later that they are not the biological dad, but still have to pay for some other man's child anyway. Being falsely accused of paternity should be a crime !!!

My child's father has been on child support since July 2011 and my child is 3. He has only paid 400$ that was taken from his taxes in 2011 lancaster county pa does nothing for me and my son I call every month there are support conferences there are hearings in front of a judge they always continue the case or tell him to get a job but the next hearing which would be 6 months later. And he never has a job I even contacted child support enforcement NOTHING happens he went to jail for 10 days NOT BECAUSE HE DIDNT PAY CHILD SUPPORT but because he didn't go to court so a warrant was issued. Bullshit he owes my son a little over 6,000 dollars on top of all that the money he is suppose to pay is only 250$ a month plus arrears they got that total from someone working a min. Wage job and only part time . He has no bills lives with his mother she pays everything he doesn't go to college nor have a job they took his license from him but he lives in a city where you can walk everywhere and he never had a car to begin with so how does that teach you a lesson. I just don't know what to do anymore or if I should give up and drop child support this is stressful and it should not be if the domestic relations did there job along with the judge and letting these dead beat parents get away with stuff.

At least I'm finding out that I'm not alone. I'm so sorry we're all going through this. It's shameful, disgusting, and downright discouraging... and no one seems able or willing to fix it. At least I'm not alone.

Everyone's situation is different. Please respect others. I had been married for 8 years to my porn/sex addicted Ex. In that 8 years we had 4 children. He supported us financially so I could stay at home and teach them. My youngest was almost 1. Yr old when I finally decided I had enough of a person that was not there only on the computer masturbating and chatting and hooking up with other women on his spare time. According to the last 8 years of being a stay at home mother and attending to our children's every need I could have asked for alimony. I didn't, I just wanted out. For our pay checks combined and from his education and work experience he should have been paying $1400/month for his 4 children. I cut that amount in half to satisfy him enough to sign our divorce decree. I worked 5 nights a week 12 hr shifts only getting $80 a night because it was supposed to be a sleeping shift in home health care. I wasnt able to afford day time daycare bill hours. My daycare bill would have been $2200 a month for all my children. My rent was $899 and all my bills, gas and everything was adding up. I wasn't aware that the welfare could help with child care. I was awarded child care assistance so I could get a day job and be able to function better for my children. Still my ex wasn't paying a dime. I struggled months having to wake up at 5am to get ready to be to work by 8. Getting myself and 4 kids ready and fighting traffic wasn't easy. My ex didnt care, he told me that i brought it on myself for wanting a divorce. I then started dating on my empty weekends and was remarried. I then had to quit my job because I didn't qualify for childcare assistance and I would be paying my $2200 daycare bill out I'd the $2400 I made every month. I would rather be with my children vs. just pay for someone else to watch my children. My husband that I have now supports all of us, loves all of us dearly and if I happen to die before they are out of the house he will never have rights to his step children. My ex still gets to see them every other weekend and 8 hours every week that he forfeits. He is court ordered to pay $630/month and half of childcare costs, and medical costs. He doesn't do any of it. His claim is that he's in school and is working full time at a job that he's self employed and only has enough to pay his cost of living. I'm very happy with my life. I love my children and husband dearly I just hate this extra person in our lives that only contributes what and when he wants. My girls love him and I can't see why and I don't influence them not to. Eventually they might see. I just wish that he would step up or get on with his single bachelor Pornaholic life with out us. Money is tight but what can I do? I feel like I am stuck in a position where I can't help myself or my kids financially. My husband is the best man I know taking on all responsibility and hopefully it'll pay off in someway maybe not financially but in other ways. I know in time it will get better. I can go back to schools and get a better job to help out more. That's the only thing in my control. I can't control what my ex does or doesn't do. I'd rather use my time and money helping my current situation vs. beating a dead horse.

I am so irratated with the court system and child support. My ex the father of all 4 of my children has not paid me any support since I filed almost 12 years ago. My youngest is 12 and my oldest is 16yrs old, and he has nothing to do with his children he blames everyone else for his life failures and mistakes. Im so tired of him getting away with this he owes me 47,762 and some change and all anyone ever says to me is be patient with the system everytime I call. Does anyone know if I have any other options I live in plymouth, ohio.

I have a friend going through: I have a friend going through the exact same thing as you women. We live in Ireland.. I wonder if the 'mams' said they couldnt pay or had no jobs would they get away so easily... Its disgraceful, what kind of judges are there in the courts around the world.. My friend is left to look after 4 children,the house, loans, education and every day care of herself and the kids...They should be put in prison. OR maybe be given community service to pay back something to society.

My divorce will be finalized this Friday. My girls are ages 6 and 2. I was married for 9 years and with him for 14 years. I have always worked and supported my family. He had a job for 12 years and then was fired due to his alcoholism. He then went into rehab and then got a job 4 months after rehab and got fired from that job 3 months after due to his alcoholism. He left the family home in October 2012 but he was spending nights with his girlfriend from October 2011 through to October 2012...so he would be come some nights claiming he was working late.. I have not received any money from him...even during our marriage, he barely contributed. I have been raising my girls by myself. The court is granting him 84 overnight stays. He doesn't pay me any money for them....for their healthcare, daycare, school, etc. I pay that all out of my own pocket. The child support is going back to October 2012 which the courts put on him. They told me that this Friday, he will be contempt. That really doesn't tell me anything. The courts are unfair. It's all just BS what all of us go through. I don't fight with him over the money....it's not worth it. I am providing a wonderful life for my babies and that's all that matters. I've always been self-sufficient. But I am struggling financially and having a hard time keeping up with all the bills. Now he's taking off on vacation with his girlfriend this coming Sunday....I'd love to be able to take a vacation with my kids...unfortunately I'm paying for everything and I don't have extra money. His girlfriend is paying for everything for him. Don't the courts see that? He's choosing not to work and I have a text message from him stating he isn't going to work because you can't get something out of nothing and that I wanted the divorce so deal with it. So they did inpute income on him but it's $20,000 less than he was making at a job he was at for 12 years. Good luck moms and dads. It's a battlefield out there.

Child support Termination: I don't know what state you live in but I live in Tennessee.
Just yesterday, I received a "Motion to Terminate Child Support" from my ex-husband.
I am going to court to fight this because he is $76,000.00 in arrears. All three of our children are grown now, but according to the state of Tennessee, he will always owe this money to them/me.
Therefore when we go to court in three weeks, the judge will not terminate his child support.

Child support Termination: I don't know what state you live in but I live in Tennessee.
Just yesterday, I received a "Motion to Terminate Child Support" from my ex-husband.
I am going to court to fight this because he is $76,000.00 in arrears. All three of our children are grown now, but according to the state of Tennessee, he will always owe this money to them/me.
Therefore when we go to court in three weeks, the judge will not terminate his child support.

my husband filed a contempt: my husband filed a contempt of court claim on his ex wife for the same thing the judge said their divorce decree is a court order not just something she follows when it benefits her. The judge also told her that if she refuses a scheduled vistitation again he will throw her in jail. We did all this Pro-Se. hope it helps

Child Support Order Being Terminated by the Court: I felt the same way but I just received a letter from Domestic Relations stating that my child support case is being dropped because my ex-husband just refuses to pay. He owes my daughter somewhere around $65,000. The court is planning to reward him for commiting a crime.

Child Support Order Being Terminated by the Court: I felt the same way but I just received a letter from Domestic Relations stating that my child support case is being dropped because my ex-husband just refuses to pay. He owes my daughter somewhere around $65,000. The court is planning to reward him for commiting a crime.

if you live to gether in same home: if we live in the same house and she wants to collect child support so she can have her health coverage with the state we live in and she said she didn't know where i lived to the state just asking now would that be a lie cen she colected if we live in the same house and i pay rent and the bills.

First of All, I would like to Get Over It: And I probably would if my credit card companies would "get over" the balances outstanding that I had to run up for medical bills, and other necessities for the kids that I ended up paying by myself. Rather than having it being a convienent drive for the ex in the latest luxury leased car from his high end doorman loft (to fly off for the weekend for a ski trip in Utah or trip to Hawaii) I would be living in an area of MY choice that was considerably more affordable and family oriented.

Good luck sounds like your a: Good luck sounds like your a hard working woman! Most females forget that making children involves two people not one and are always behind that money that's why its called Child Support. To help the custodial patent

$ 90,000 in arrears owed to my family: My children's father is $90,000 in arrears. My daughter is 17 & my son is 15. Their donor has yet to pay a red cent on an order that was written 14 years ago. I work full-time to provide for my family. The donor was also offered to provide healthcare for the children which he has yet to do. The point is I follow the order of the court because I had respect for the system. Unfortunately, if your rob a bank of $ 90,000, it is a felony, but take it from two little kids, it's a joke!!!. It's flawed yes, but it's the only system we have. I will never vacate this order or the rearrange. He can run for the rest of his miserable existence. The thought of that brings me joy!

The title alone makes me: The title alone makes me angry. My husband faithly pays his child support. He is NOT a dead beat dad, but the ex NEVER lets the kids come see him. The only thing he can do is after the fact (of not seeing his kids on the appointed visitation schedule) get a lawyer and go to court. She lives 12 hours away and it's a lot difficult and expensive. We are barely able to make the payments as it is..... So you wanna talk about dead beat dads? Just know there are some out there dishing out money and don't even get to talk to their kids much less see them. There are fathers out there trying to do the right thing and getting "screwed" evrey time they turn around.

Woman's favor my butt: "the system will always be in the woman's favor"......my daughter's father has seen her less than 10 days in her 2 years of life and after requesting time to set up an allotment refuses to send the court ordered child support and owes over $1000 since December and in total almost $4500 in 2 years...I quit school and my job when he enlisted and decided to follow his "dream" and was repayed by him lying and cheating...so I make BARELY $16000 a year now and am suppose to pay for all our expenses myself!? He has said he doesnt want to pay me money well sign over your rights then...but NOOOO he would NEVER give up on his child. Honestly, whether the non custodial parent is a man or woman it is about stepping up and being responsible for the sake of your child or walking away. I find it disgusting that he can fluff off financial support like it is nothing yet I am suppose to turn around and let him see her for visits and on Skype and for phone calls. Step up or Get out!! I would be more than happy if he signed over his parental rights...I don't care how hard it would be on our own it would be worth it to be rid of his self centered baloney!

Exactly! Very well put. I: Exactly! Very well put. I wish that kids that come from a divorced family realize that 300.00 isn't much. It takes so much more to provide food, shelter, clothes, utilities, gas, car payments, insurance, cell phones, etc.. I mean seriously if your mom wants to buy new shoes for herself and treat herself to Starbucks she is entitled to. That money she gets is to help support you. So if you break down all the bills and food and clothing costs your 300.00 is there. The 300 she spends is of her own money. Look at it that way.

Women who are divorced and have their kids while the husband lives a single life suffer silently. It's harder for the parent who has the children due to the fact nothing was made easier, finances decrease and responsibility increased.

You should respect your mother and tell her you are greatful for all her sacrifices. If you are 16 then you should get a part time job to help support your other expenses that are not a necessity.

The Kid in the Situation: I'm 16 and my mom gets around 300$ a month for me. She use to have to pay bills with that money but now she doesn't need that money to pay anything because my step dad pays all of the bills now. Now she wastes my child support on going out to eat while I'm at school. She will occasionally take me and my sisters out with that money but for the most part she spends it on herself, even though I need clothes and things like that. One time she even got $2000 and didn't tell me and I didn't even know she had received that money until she spent it all. I don't think she should receive any child support if its not going to go towards me for things like clothes, shoes, or even put it in a savings account for college or something. it doesn't seem fair to me.

Welfare / Projects are proof that women are dead beats : So many call men dead beat dads. Well i never see a father running to welfare and seeing how much free money he can get and live off tax payers for years. Yet I see women at the grocery stores with 5 kids , 2 basket full of stuff I cant afford and yes i have a good job all on the welfare card. Im not implying that all women are like this but society has labeled men as dead beat from the get go.

When are women going to be responsible for themselves and be self supporting? And no, living with new boyfriend, husband, parents or welfare doesnt count as being independent nor does it conclude she is supporting the child or children. If so, where can i sign up for free stuff. let me know. What happened to having morals and values or showing their children how to do better in life? But no, usually its 1 child per father paying child support.

Now there is a graphic chart going around the internet, showing that a Lazy non working women on the welfare system makes more money that a person with same amount of kids who works @ 40,000 a year. How is that possible not to mention the 10,000 tax return on money she never paid into taxes. Which explains the new 250 dollar purse and new car.

I am a parent who has 1 child, paying to a women who cheated and went directly to welfare. I never missed a payment but now that my chld is about to turn 18 she petitioned for more time on child support because its going to put her in a financial problem.

Women on the welfare system dont count as to taking care of their child. Free food, housing, insurance...
and they claim they are independant and are financially taking care of their child.. I call BS.
I see this a way of life for many of those women.

Women want to be equal as a man, Then start giving their child the same amount of money. Men dont play the independent card and then claim victum in courts. How many women dont let their childs father see their child. Men have no rights , just pay.. Thats called Gold diggers.

Welfare is meant for the poor. Not for people or women trying to avoid responsibility.

47 % of the United States is on Welfare. I have seen on the news, 5 generations of women on welfare.

Its about time women you show you are a role model for your child. Stop letting us pay for legalized prositution and show your kids that you are better than what most of us think you are. You have to deal with explaining to your child why you never worked and have kids from different men.

Last statement, Its no wonder why so many kids have so many medical problems. Seeing a high volume of men come in and out of the front door as putting in an application until money runs out. Children dont see morals and values any more. A mother with kids from the same guy is becoming non existant. I only have 1 child before anyone blast me. And no i have never lived off of welfare. No matter the situation , i have always worked since 15 and now im 40. I have shown my child a path of responsibility , morals and good judgement. and i dont believe you ask the government for free stuff because you cant get off your butt.

Let me tell you something, : Let me tell you something, the drop in the bucket as to expenses of raising two kids my ex is supposed to pay yet doesn't is in no way like hitting the lottery. If anything he has hit the lottery, now he is free to spend all his money on himself which is quite frankly not much difference from when we were married. The last time he came to visit the kids he was in brand new clothes, had bought a brand new truck, and was bragging about hos new giant flat screen Tv. The kids on the other hand are in secondhand clothes and playing with secondhand toys, yet he is broke and cant pay childsupport. I think you mist be some younger college kid withheld no idea how life really is, and thoroughly hope before you go fixing the system you get a clue.

A dad that cares : I have a son his 5 years old ,I was with the mother for 3 years but we are no togeter anymore for the last 3 years. We got a agrement of paying her 150 every two weeks (cuz that's how I get pay) and had my son every weekend. That only work for 6 months,them we try too work something else. We agre that I will stay with him every two weekend and one day of every week + 180 every two ok ( I was fine with that ). In the last 4 years she haven't had I permanet job at most only 6 months until last year. My kid was no in day care cuz she was too lady too go too diferrent day care and ask for a aplication at all. So I decide too go the a day care have a appoiment and we have or son in the day care (finally ). She was paying 25 a week for the day care and I was paying her 180+ clouse por my son,and food too. She all way was getting late on paying the day care and sometime acumulating 150 on back payment and guess who has too came with that monkey (and in all that time she was leaving in a goverment houing proyects) so she wasn't paying much cuz her mom paying it there. And the las 3 years I know her her 4 boyfriend that they never workout with her (and they all know my son and son lived with him ) now she have a boyfriend that is lieveing with her my son and 2 more kid (from her boyfriend). I meet the guy and the guy lot ok and it looks like a good guy too me and + my son love too play with his kid that there house. Last yeah she decide that she need more money cuz she is have a new job and now she have too pay more in daycere (from 25 to 55 now ) and she want me too stay with my son more time , the more time with him was fime with me ,but the more money uff I didn't like that idea at all but well ok. I start giving her $300 every two week or 600 a month (I alway been giving the monkey cash for 6 months them money order and in the las 2 years direct deposit on a card that I get her) and I start staying with my son every too week from wed to sun and everytime that she can't stay with him ( its like every month). Now she I resive the letter from court for thet child support that she sent cuz she want or more money or she want me too pay my son insuranse ( the insurant I'm ok with that ) but more money? (Ohhh yeah and she now she is getting pay more that me for the las 1 1/2 years cuz of her new job ,have a new car. So in that case how can I go too court and explain too the judge that a good father and that she on my want more money and even if want too give more I just can't. Ohhhh and I altmost forgot in the last 3 years my son been staying with me 250 day from 365 a year cuz she say she didn't have no body too stay with him after the day care. I have prove of all the payment I been doing and never ,never miss a payment for nothing. What do you call that mother?

Also might I add mothers who: Also might I add mothers who don't financially provide for the child via their own source of income and live off of government assistance when they maintain a professional doctorate degree are just as much as deadbeats as those men who don't pay :)

She should "woman up" and get: She should "woman up" and get a j-o-b. Her responsibility to her child doesn't end at giving birth. A woman doesn't have the right to demand support from the courts if she is dependent on government assistance and refuses to work while the child is in school all day, every day. Especially someone with a skill set such as a doctorate degree doesn't have the right to not work and demand a high order from the courts in order to cover her personal bills. If she is not financially stable to provide she shouldn't have custody of the children. The woman knows the less she makes the more she can wriggle out of the courts and that is unjust. Women only want "equality" where they can profit off of it and they can't be equal and make a profit.

Women only want men to be fathers for the money, plain and simple. Don't bemoan that a father isn't "physically supporting" their child..............when the mother won't afford the father custody in the first place.

My ex owes arrears nearly: My ex owes arrears nearly 25,0000. I recently dropped child support and I just asked for my arrears..I am tired of the back and forth to court,he quits his jobs n goes under the table..it's not worth the fight anymore, I have helped him and he does what he can to pay nothing my daughter is 17 now, I live in NJ and he lives in PA. Well,he tells my daughter she can get her license so of course she was excited..well the method to his Maddness,she can only get it if she moves in with him. Well it's because he saw an opportunity to get out of paying. My daughter quit school, she changed her address to her dads but never ever stayed there. She just wanted her drivers license, well his girlfriend claimed her without my knowing or my permission, his father gave him 20 thousand dollars. Then be sold his Harley for 9500 dollars. Out of all that money my daughter didn't get a thing, no new clothes no nothing. Not even the income tax she stole com me. We pay her health insurance, doctors visits, medications, clothes and we pay for her. Car insurance, now he talked her out of going to college in NJ, she goes in PA. He does not want to pay Anything, I give her gas money, I paid for all books Nd materials and I signed for the loans. NOW I get a court paper in the mail, he is taking me for. Child support, is that possible? I am so angry. This man pays nothing n he wants me to pay him.

If my 2 boys lived with there: If my 2 boys lived with there dad for 11months an was given back
To me. My ex also claimed my 2 son on his taxes. Can i ask my ex for the tax credit he got for my 2 kids that i got back?

re: kids point of view: You are in the middle which is never where any young person should be. Child support issues are between parents and should remain that way. However, I will say, even if your mom doesn't need the money to provide for you, the courts have a formula so kids don't have to change the way they live after parents divorce. You are correct, you are the victim, and your dad is responsible for the choices he is making.

hmmm I'm not so sure about: hmmm I'm not so sure about the ethical part. If you want children you should be ready to take care of them on your own. otherwise dont pop out so many little twerps you cant afford to take care of. have some personal responsibility and stop trying to make other people pay because you made a bad decision.

I am a mother, and I hate: I am a mother, and I hate what you guys are saying. It sounds like these women dont have thier childrens best interest in mind. Im sorry you had to deal with it. I only wish my ex cared as much as it sounds like you do. Any child support he pays goes to thier school lunchs, cloths, and parts of bills that cover things that my children enjoy as do the rest of us. I am remarried and have 2 children to my new hubby. He loves my 2 sons and treats them much better than thier real father. Thier bio dad will do anything to get out of payn support for them because he thinks i use it frivously when he has no idea what it is used for. My sons know he is to pay support but does not know if or when he does or how much even. He has managed to make his monthly pmy 55 for 2 children and it does not help much as raising a child is expensive. My current hubby and i do anything and everything for them while he has visitation and will not help. Anything he does get them he wont allow them to bring home for them to enjoy. We are not wealthy but we dont need his money either id be happy if he kept his money and bought them school cloths or put lunch money into an acct for them. I try to encourage thier relationship with him, but its hard when he wants to pick fights at every encounter and isnt good with the boys. I pick them up after his weekend visit afraid of what will happen. They dont bath there or eat decient. My ex is very racest and trys to make my sons the same. I would love to make his visits monitored for these reasons but im allways told until he agrees or he hurts them in a way i can prove theres nothing i can do. If my sons had a good father id like to think whatever our diffrences may be id be happy for thier relationship with him, but he would have to grow up, put them first, and stop being petty with me before that could happen. I am a good mother and i feel like some of these women out there that want child support just because they can get it are wrong. But who listens to opinions like mine anyway

support: This is not intened for one person but for everybody. I have twin daughters and they are five years old. I been paying support since they were one. I pay $170 a week. Thats right $170 ond i don't make over $30000 a year. I'm sick of women always complaining about what they dont get or what they deserve. I think i deserve to pay less but you dnt see me bitching. I never cimplain stfu be a man or women and handle your business. The system will always be in the womens favor no matter wat the circumstance she always gets the benefit of the doubt. I'm from new york state and im actually seeing a lot of dads with there kids and im loving every bit of it. All the men just do your part and help with your kids. If you know, put a damn condomn on. Having kids changes ya life around. It changed my whole outlook on life. Once you have kids its all about whats best for them. Honestly it might look like child support is for lazy women that sit on they ass all day. Its really nothing you can do about it honestly. Cause I know for a fact my bm spends my money on drugs and updating her closet with the lastest fashion wear. But oh well what can i honestly do but pray she do the right thing.

That is a 16 year old with an: That is a 16 year old with an opinion. And who are you to call someone else's dad a deadbeat? What if someone called you a self righteous, condescending, piece of poop. For you just having an opinion, just like that 16 y.o. Opinion about a man whom she loves very much. Shame on you!!

First of all,,if i pay a bill: First of all,,if i pay a bill with my child support thats helping my child,,if i buy gas for my car to get me and my kids where they need to go,,guess what thats helping my child,,if i goto buy extra grocery for us to eat,,thats helping my child,,the fact is not that a person is being lazy its the point that i didnt lay down and have the baby by myself why should i have to raise and finance the child by myself. Guess you dont care to much about back child support for your kids because you dont know who the hell their father is,,Now please have a whole row of seats,, i thought this was for women trying to gain insight on child support,,not a place where you where trying to down these women and men because of it,,LAME

Deadbeat Dad: Seriously, you need to realize your mother puts food on the table, electricity to kept the house warm or cool, lights, trash pick up, running water, gasoline to take you places as well as car expenses,tires etc, a Rent or Mortgage payment, and toilet paper to wipe your butt and all the other things it takes to run a house. Go try living on your own and see how much money it takes. Your dad is a deadbeat that wants to buy you the extras to make himself look good and be your little hero when your mom actually provides for you and takes care of the day to day work of raising a spoiled teenager!! She can no longer afford or if she does she sacrifices other ways to try to give you what she can without the money that a Court of Law ORDERED you deadbeat dad to pay. You act like your dad is the the bomb because he doesn't pay to help your mother with expenses!! You care about what's in it for you like all teenagers! Your dad is a piece of trash for not paying what the court order and hiding money, that is illegal and what a poor role model. Who do you think knows more about this a Judge or you. You need to respect your mother !!!

I am sorry to hear that. I: I am sorry to hear that. I just wanted to say not all custodial parents are that way. My ex has made 11 payments (not all full payments) in the last 10 years. I do not tell my kids when he does not pay but they do know when he does. I have never been able to count on my $350/mth for 3 kids child support so I support my kids on my own. When I receive the $350 (or any amount) it is divided by 3 and the kids get to buy something they have wanted or have been saving for. My ex does not have any contact with myself or my children. He does not send birthday or Christmas cards or presents. So giving them the full amount I receive is my way of giving them gifts from their father.

I hate to be the one that tells you this.: I sympathize with all the non-custodial parents out there that are not receiving their child support. I have some really bad news. Where ever your order is from, it is important for you to know that there are probably 10's of thousands even 100,000 orders in place where you live. And what the courts are not telling you is, the courts don't have enough money to enforce 100,000 orders. They are taking your money for the court costs and you will probably never see anything in return. The justice department is being run just like a business. This is how you will need to start looking at this problem. Don't go overboard in spending a lot of money to get your order enforced.
My ex-wife owes me $ 7000.00 in arrears. She is literally laughing at the judge that signed the order. She lives in a different state than I do. The child support - attorney generals office tells me they can't enforce orders across state lines. So I will probably never see a dime. She lives off the good people around her. I hope and pray that all the custodial parents are able to get some kind of support. The trick is don't wait on the other parent to pay, just continue on and if anything comes in it will be a nice surprise. Who knows,maybe the non-custodial parent will win the lottery and you'll get everything back 50 fold.

You people are sick if you: You people are sick if you chose to have custody deal with it don't ask the other side to pay your bills taking a grandparents house to pay you for something you wanted to do it is like a lottery have a kid and get paid the tax credit isn't enough let's wreck the other sides credit take their chance of having anything not enough they lost out raising their child right when I finish law school I'm going t
o fix this broken system it's a false state of responsible party cause its who hit the lottery

kids point of view: I'm 16 and my dad stopped paying child support. From the rest of the worlds point of view he is a deadbeat dad, but I don't want him paying child support for the exact reason some comments on here are saying. My mom wasn't having much go towards me (at least it seems like it, because I haven't even noticed a difference since he has stopped paying). She would buy 200$ running shoes almost every three months and two Starbucks coffee's every day. Once that money flow stopped, so did she. My dad still secretly puts 100$ in my bank, buys some of my clothes, art supplies (which is not cheap) and takes me out to dinner when ever he can. Recently his drivers license was taken away because he was too far behind in payment. So now I can't even see him and my birthday is coming up soon. What upset me the most was that he promised me that next time I saw him he would meet my boyfriend and take us out to dinner, and i know he feels he has failed me. I wish there was a way that I could prevent these things from happening to him, but at the same time not go against my mom to make her mad at me.

I feel bad 4 u!!!: I'm a 31 year-old woman I have 3 kids rite my oldest is 17, I have a 1 year old, & a 1month old daughter with that being said my 17year-old & my 1 month old have the same father we had him at a young age but he was a deadbeat but Thur out the years of our son life I tired 2 make it work with him cause he need that fatherly bond but it would always b some stuff behind tryna be a family he have left me numerous times also this time I though he had grew up by now since we're older but guess again hell no he still an ass but he got me pregnant again he left me once again 2 be with some low class bit**** I loved this man for a long time but I had 2 realize that he doesn't want me for he just want sex from me but I had 2 learn the hard way about him he's no good and I just need 2 move on with my life and don't worry about his whack ass! My other son my 1 year-old his dad was a friends with benefits thang and now that he's here he don't do a damn thing for but he all on FB with his other kids which I think is wrong I don't want much from these dudes just more help when I need a break

Constant Battle: Maybe the custodial parents aren't really "money hungry", maybe it's just getting more and more expensive to raise a child these days. That's the truth.
As a step mom, in which my husband has full custody of his daughter, we also have to deal with the other parent. She hasn't really been a parent for almost 13 years. She too was ordered to pay a very minimal amount ($100/mo) and won't do that. She wasn't ordered to pay anything else, my husband got stuck with all of their debt as well. She has 4 children, of which she has custody of 1, and that's only because he is 6 months old. I'm not saying its not the "deadbeats" parents fault, I will put the blame on the court system as well. If the Family Service Division would enforce the rules a little better, we would all be in a better place. And it also goes beyond the FSD..the courts, government, all the way up to the President. There needs to be stricter rules in place for cases like a lot of people have. I for one, can't contact FSD and discuss the case, because I am not one of the legal guardians. Thankfully, my husband just wrote a letter to them, allowing me to discuss the case. The system is all about mothers getting their rights. I have a family member going through a custody battle. He was ordered to pay, and got 2 months behind, and they are after him like flies on shit. Now in our case, after 10 years, they aren't after my husbands ex. She is over $11,000 behind in back support. When that child requires special care, things get even more expensive. And as kids get older, they do get more expensive, gotta have new stuff all the time, the school always needs you to buy things, and send things in. If the non custodial parent doesn't support THIER child, their rights to that child or children need to be taken away. Or, their visitation requires a payment at each visit, that has to be made up front. Something has to change. When you have a parent that would rather spend their money on drugs, alcohol, and whatever else, and you are in the "system" for that type of abuse, a huge red flag needs to go up. Oh, well, since that person has children, and they have been removed from that home, we need to step in. The mom in our case has been to rehab 6 times, jail I don't know how many times, and depends on others to support her, you are damn right she doesn't deserve to see her children. But that's not the case. Sadly, my step daughter thinks the world of her currently. It's her mom though, and I understand that. If you want to be in your child's life, then so be it. But don't take advantage of it. She is also on state aid. I think if you are on state aid, and owe child support, they should take into consideration the amount owed, and take some of that money and put it toward child support. She lives with her grandpa, has no bills, the baby is on medicaid (or medicare), she gets paid by her grandpa to take care of him, he pays all of the bills, and when he dies, she gets his house. The only good part about that is, FSD can put a lein on the house when she gets it put in her name. But, I am sure there is a long process for that as well.

I didn't read all of the stories on this page, but I read a few. I just wanted to put my insight into it, and the things we are going through with the constant child support battle.
Good luck to all of those dealing with the issue at hand. It's a hard one!

I understand you : I understand you completely. My daughters mother doesnt spend any money from the child support on her. My daughter is 10 now and tells me that her mother was buying tattoos with the child support, She has also used money on 2 other children she has that are not mine. I have tried taking this to court and letting the judge know but I was looked at as a dead beat father and the judge said that this was just a method of trying to get the mother in trouble and he wasnt going to here anything I had to say. I think more fathers should be able to have there children as we can alot of times take care of our kids better than the women. Im so tired of these women spreading there legs poping out children and then using the system , and when the system doesnt work for them then they want to cry about it. The bad part is the kids grow up seeing all of this and continue the cycle.

omg, he's their father and was ordered to do something and didn't comply with the judge's order. and yeah, if i were you and my ex didn't comply with the agreement i would have taken her back to court; so that's your problem, but just because you felt the need to not push the issue does not mean everyone feels the same. so what, just because he feels like his first life didn't work out, he shouldn't have to pay - both financially and emotionally. yeah, there are student loans, but that wasn't her point...was it!

I agree with this poster.
I: I agree with this poster.
I have 2 sons by my ex husband, who has never paid any child maintenance even though l have taken him to Court on several occasions, and he even admitted to the Judge that he has been in employment for the past 3 years!
The court system is ridiculous yet l no longer care. I raise my boys entirely on my own and l have moved on, whereas my ex is still trying to get his revenge on me.
Insecurity is a really ugly trait.

I agree with you: My child's father is deadbeat too. He goes around telling everyone how much he loves his daughter and takes care of her, but only calls once every five years. He refuses to pay child support regularly. I mean he is thousands behind, and when I tell him that he won't have to pay anything if he just lets my husband who has been there since she was only two months old adopt her without any hassle, he refuses to do that too. My daughter is almost 13 now and I can count on one hand how many times he has seen her. My husband and I both work our butts off. We have four kids all together, and I look at it like this. If he doesn't want to let my husband adopt her then he needs to step up and be a father to her, or at least pay child support. He is in the military and they use to take it out of his check, but they stopped doing that for some reason. I don't think that it is wrong to expect the non custodial parent to pay child support. I mean they did lay there with you to make the baby, and just because you're not as heartless as those deadbeats, and can just get up and walk away from your child like you never had them does not mean that it is okay for them to do it, and never have to pay a dime. And maybe all of the child support checks don't go directly to your child, but they are helping you pay your bills so that the child can have a roof over their head, and clothes on their backs. All of the money that we spend on our children. Child support is just a little reimbursement. There is nothing wrong with expecting him to help out.

It's the law and laws are: It's the law and laws are made to be followed. If you owed money to the IRS and didn't pay you wouldn't be able to get away with it. It's the law! You have interest and penalties because you didn't follow the law and keep up with your payments. Where does it say that the mother should take full responsibility of the child? You don't have to keep it in your pant , you need to be responsible and use protection if you don't want a child. Make better choices or suffer the consequences of your action. Your man enough to have sex then be man enough to participate in the outcome. Quit whining already and own up to your poor choices.

deadBEAT MOMS: what world do you live in women. my parents were divorced and when i turned 18 i was instantly challenged with becoming an adult. i went to college and when i learned how much things cost i joined the military where i grew more into a man. then i had money for college and money to pay my bills. if you think your pussy ass kids are not for the real world out then keep them at home and send to a school near by. dont turn to someone else to take care of what you think is right for them. or why dont you figure out how to take out more mortgages in stead of crying online. i took my ex back to court due to being denied my visitation for a full year. when it was my xmas the judge order to immediately bring my daughter back to the state. she replied with she will bring her back after xmas. the judge did nothing. maybe i should go and post online how she should be locked up or maybe i should just deal with it cause that s the way it is. i was being denied a full year, and your crying cause dad wont pay for college and a house. fact is your child is a adult if you feel so strongly stop paying to go back to court and pay for your adult child. i mean there are many banks offering student loans and are plenty of spots in the us military to fill.

Sad State.....: I agree... if us men would just keep it in our pants we would be better off. The women too. I had my son when I was 17. I married the mother... it lasted 6 months. Now 34 years later I still pay. The Child Support is finished. It's the dam interests and penalties. She has used the money always for HER education. My son never saw any of the money. I was denied visitation, never knew where they were. But still I paid...

Now she still collects a check after being paid off in full. She is buying her nursing degree with my money! I have put HER through college twice now. It's a joke.

I agree, GET OVER IT: Well said! I applaud your for doing it on your own and I completely agree with you! A lot of exes attempt to get revenge on their former spouses by taking them to court. It's a little pathetic if you ask me, yes a man has a responsibility to his children; but if he doesn't want to be a dad then let him be. Ultimately, it's his loss not yours. Stop complaining and be the best mom you can be, stop worrying about what your ex is doing. He is an ex for a reason!

First of all. I am so glad: First of all. I am so glad that you are able to afford raising your kids on your own. How wonderful for them and you. But get one thing straigt little girl, Because I or any other mother thinks the deadbeat should help take care of his kids does not make me lazy! I work my ass off every day. I have 3 boys. 17, 12, and 10. I make 30 grand a year. Not enough to pay ALL my bills and feed my kids every month, but to much to get any help from the state. He has a new wife and takes care of her kids. Good for him, but he has 3 kids that he wants to go around telling people that he takes care of. He doesn't care if they eat! He doesn't care if they have clothes or shoes or school supplies or anything else. It's nice for you to not care that your childrens deadbeat isn't around but don't point your finger at the rest of us because we want our children to have more than enough to eat or shoes that don't have holes.

Sad state of this country: After reading these comments, it's clear that it is going to take several generations of soul searching to ever get out of the sad state of entitlement misery this country is in. The single most important factor here is - get the drugs and boozing out of your life! Mom's- really.. you didn't start that relationship out that way? Sure. Ladies: quit having sex with men who are obviously not wanting to be dads. Men: quit having sex with women who have no self respect. Don't start having sex at a young age; you will likely demolish your emotional well being for the rest of your life. Staying away from the drugs and alcohol is the most important way to avoid making stupid mistakes, as it clouds your judgement...as we have been repeatedly told! Yeah, how boring. But think of the repercussions. You can say "what's done is done", but there is WAY too much "do'in" in this society today. Take the time to make sure a relationship is right before you jump in the sack. It's heartwrenching to read about the horrible emotional games that grown, but selfish, adults play on each other in spite of the suffering of the own children! The most important thing in a civilized society is the innocence and happiness of childhood. Sadly, this entitlement/welfare state is perpetuating the loss of it.

re get second job : This ignorant comment...I share custody of a child and in pay support towards health care and also have to clothe, feed and care for her just like the other parent.. if I had a second job id never see the child I share... people say dumd stuff
The women chasing her ex for child support and claims to be broke says she spent 65,000 on lawyers fees...really? You should have just saved your money for your kids college or ahome for your family.
Fact is so many are hell bent on sticking it to the ex they raise angry resentful children who witness all this relentless badgering and whining and stress and sense of entitlement. You should get a job too. 120$ for one outfit for one child? Your living to high on the hog there don't you think? My child has beautiful clothes and 120 is a lot! Of money towards clothing..(5$ walmart shirts 9$ jeans etc..why so materialistic?
These clothes are just as good...yes kids are exspensive but thete are ways to make things work.
Don't rely on your ex to support your bills and everything else..you do have a responsibility to care for and pay for them too. Flip your " it takes 2" statement around and take responsibility as well.

Call the social security office and turn them in for fraud. The ssi payments are to be paid to your husband, his spouse and children. NOT his parents. You husband is not allowed to even sign his payment to them. SSI is paid in different ways. There would be your husbands benefits. However, the bulk would be the remaining amount which would be the family, spouse and dependent benefits. Those must be paid to either you or your husband. Not the parents since one if the things that is required to handle the children's benefits is showing how you used the funds to actually support them. It must be signed each and every year and submitted back to social security. They are either NOT sending it or are lying. Either way, they are committing social security fraud and can be facing federal charges.

Call the office or even better go there. Make sure you take proof of where you live, your children live and so forth. This will get them in serious trouble and require them to pay back every check cashed.

That or you can just cry about the unfairness of it all. Do nothing. You kids need someone to step up and be proactive in making sure they have what they need. You husband can't. You must. Even if you guys split up, your children's benefits are assigned to the parent that has to support them. That is not your In Laws. The ONLY way they would have a legitimate claim to the benefits is if your children lived with them and they provided all of their needs. If they are ONLY paying your husbands medical bills, and that is their claim to the funds, then the ONLY thing they are AT most able to have paid to them is your husbands benefits. NOT the children's

Not meaning to sound harsh. It is just that if what you say is happening was happening to me and my kids, I would have ALREADY made this call. The first check they took would be the last. No one would take food from my children's mouth without facing a fight with me first!

If you say you have called and there is nothing you can do, then I know this to be untrue. You see I AM disabled and live on SSDI. It is a little different, but only in some ways because I am actually drawing on money I paid in where as SSI is more like welfare for disabled since it is paid to those that have not worked and paid in enough credits to qualify for SSDI. The insurance is medicaid instead of medicare. Also you have an outside income and asset limit with SSI. SSDI has no such limit.
But how these benefits work, who can receive them and who is entitled, that is the same. Your in-laws cannot be assigned financial management of your children's benefits unless they are providing them and the children LIVE WITH THEM.

response to "First of all get over it": I am a mother of 3, my oldest is 20 and living on her own, my 15 year old son and my 13 year old daughter live with me. I have been raising my kids without their dad since my youngest was not even a year old. I want to know if the lady with the 8 year old and the 2 month old got pregnant by herself? Do you not seek child support from you children's dad because your selfish and you don't want their dad to be a part of their lives as well? and who the hell are you calling lazy? not all mothers get child support just so they can be lazy but can pay their bills. Most months I'm lucky to get 120 dollars a month from child support the state has collected for my kids then the rest of the time I don't get anything, 120 dollars is barely enough to buy 1 new outfit with shoes for each of my kids never the less it's not enough to pay my bills. You must be living in a perfect world to not need financial help from the father but not all of us are that lucky, and not all of us are lazy. Try thinking about others before you decide to start judging others, not all of us have a perfect life.

Your story is very similar to: Your story is very similar to mine, it just happening to me, my husband is an alcoholic, he got involved with a car accident 12 yrs ago, ever since then our life has changed, he was in coma and ICU for 3 months. My in law immediately asked me to sell my house, car and get a job when I still have 2 young kids to take care of. After that they loaned me $3,000 but as soon as my husband woke up from coma, still unconscious immediately to put a check in front of him asked him to sign the check pay them back. I was speechless. They couldn't even wait till he is concious. After that he is on SSI, my father in law is crazy for SSI and other benefits even though he is so rich. So due to not working, husband has no focus or goal to look for he started to drink till he went out of control, when I cried for help in law told me to call the cops and Drs. So at the end he was sent to mental hospital and alcoholic rehab on and off. This parent has selected hearing and vision, they are very sick people, refused to believe their son is sick. Now they called the SSI office and took over my husband SSI money meanwhile I got no support what so ever from this cold blood animals family but continuing to add salt to my wound. NO support but yet taking over SSI payment which supposed for my sons money. Well, beside crying I don't see what else I can do. I have no energy to fight at all.

What a disaster is right! : It seems pretty obvious what side of things you come from in this situation. You post has so many questions I will address them separately.
".The truth is there are both men and woman out there who are being kicked while they are down. The problem comes when I read comments from woman who say their ex's deserve to be in jail, etc etc."

If both men and women do not feel it is there responsibility to support their child even in the most reduced capacity, then yes, jail seems to be all that is remaining to gain their attention that it is REQUIRED of them to do so. I have a very hard time sympathizing with a person working under the table to hide their income while not paying even the most minimal support based on MINIMUM WAGE. It isn't kicking them when they are down when they have been given 2 years to hang themselves! In my own case he was convicted and given a suspended sentence. He had 10 years probation. Big kick! NOT.. I honestly did not want to see him go to jail. Still don't but it seems to be the ONLY thing that will gain his attention. If only putting him there a couple of days to open up his eyes that support must be paid. I mean sell the motorcycle. Don't go out every night. I do not think that expecting the other parent to help support their child is "lacking empathy". It would seem to me that the one "lacking empathy" is the parent that feels it is ok for the other parent to provide the full support of their child. That they feel it is ok for the other parent to work 2 jobs or 30 hours a week overtime to pick up the slack of the other parent?

" When it comes down to a 50/50 split why does the male still have to pay support? " Cannot say, possibly because in most places on average men earn higher wages than women. That would be generalizing though and since I only know a few families that have a true 50/50 split and those do not have support paid by either parent. The remainder while having joint custody, they do not have a 50/50 split. The child lives with one parent a majority of the time and the joint refers to decision making only. Not the actual living arrangements.

" What about those folks who get remarried and use the support that comes from an ex partner to supplement their income?"
It is rare that child support awarded is anywhere close to half of the actual cost to support that child. Therefor it is certainly NOT supplementing the family income. It is the same thing it was before the ex-spouse remarried, child support. It supplements the cost of supporting the CHILD or would you prefer the cost be borne by the new spouse instead of where it should be, the other parent?

"Why is visitation and support two different entities? "
Really? Wow.. ok.. I will break this one down for you easily. The reason is to keep parents from doing what you complained about. This is actually something to protect the dead beat parent. By making them separate it is meant to keep the CP(custodial Parent) from using the child support arrears as a reason for denying visitation. If they were not separate, when the NCP was not paying, they would get no visitation. I agree they are separate. Personally, my child is already losing one kind of support from his NCP, the last thing I want to do is deny him the only other kind of support he can get. Unfortunately, we CP are not allowed to deny visitation, but we also are not allowed to REQUIRE it either. So a NCP can show up and the CP denies visitation they are in contempt. The NCP can blow off his child for years though and the NCP is completely in the clear. You cannot force them to be a parent to their child. But the law DOES require they support them. Even if minimally.

"You people are focusing on sort of a "revenge" tactic kinda outlook. Sorry ladies but that isn't fair at all. If you continue to compound issues on your ex partners how does that make things work out in the end? "

Really? Revenge? Actually expecting the NCP to have consequences to leaving the full support of their child to the other parent or the state and therefore the rest of the tax payers? It isnt called revenge. It is called expecting them to step UP. It is called if they arent going to step up then they CHOOSE the consequences. I certainly do not force my ex to not send in his support. This is not a case of someone not having the funds or being out of work. He has it and works steady. He just chooses to spend his money elsewhere. That is certainly his choice. However, if that comes with consequences then those are his choice to. My only request is that if the courts are going to have me down there over and over, they actually do what they say they will do! Unfortunately some NCP have a thick head and jail is the only thing they DO understand.

It is fairly obvious from reading some of these posts which poster's have had the difficult job of raising children without the financial support of the other parent and the ones that either have no children, are dating someone that doesnt pay any support or chooses to not pay any support themselves. If you were in the shoes of the CP that is getting no help from the other parent, you might understand that for most of us (not all) it isnt about getting even or even being angry. It is about needing help and being disgusted with the system saying they ARE helping or will and they DON'T. I do NOT want to see my ex in jail. What I want is to see my ex pay his child support obligation. What I want is to be able to afford to by my son shoes before he walks the bottom off of them. What I want is to be able to afford to pay for him to play the sport he wants to play. What I want is to be able to afford to buy him clothes since he is growing out of things so fast I barely can keep up and cannot afford to buy them. What I want is to be able to afford to keep groceries in my home for a growing 13 year old boy!

If you believe that somehow that makes me or any other CP in my situation lacking empathy, then I have to say the one you are lacking empathy for is the child. Because in the end, they are the one that is not being cared for as they should. You sound like my ex. I purchased a car. At the time his support was 350.00 for two children. In his mind his support was what paid my car payment because it was 375.00. Only a person that had not had to support a family would see it that way. When in fact no, yes my car payment was 375.00. However, my kids had to eat just as much as they did before I bought my car. My kids had to have the same clothes they had to have before, had to have the same roof over their heads, had to have the same day care expense they had to have before. The ONLY change is now I could drive to work without fear of my car braking down on the side of the road and not only losing a day of work but having to pay another hefty auto repair bill.

I can PROMISE you that what I paid to support my children was WAY WAY WAY beyond another 350.00 a month! MUCH more!

I just read what you wrote and I understand what your going through because I'm in the same boat as you. I live in NJ and have been going to court every month for ether child support or visitation for 7 year old and from what I just read I'm going on the same path.

Enough with the which is worst Deadbeat moms or dads: Really? is this really a competition. The fact is both are equally as bad. The fact is there are simply more men only because there are more single moms than dads. I do not think ANYONE on this board has been attempting to make mom's out to be saints. They are simply telling their OWN stories! Since this forum is called what it is "firstwivesworld" then OBVIOUSLY we are going to see a majority of single moms posting. But I don't think anyone has posted on here that non custodial mom's are superior in ANY way to non-custodial dad's. In fact I have seen the single moms called money hungry and we need to just get over actually asking for the other parent to be responsible for their child in any way. Heck we should just feel thankful when they throw a buck or two our way!

I believe what this thread was about how courts make harsh threats.. but will NOT follow through on anything. That the other party can just skate along sometimes through the child's entire life following not one order given and the worst they will get is a finger wagged at them by the judge and the inconvenience of showing up to court repeatedly. I agree completely with the poster.

I am the mother of 4. My ex-husband is currently in arrears over 12,000.00. He was actually convicted of contempt and sentenced to 6 months in jail and his license suspended. They suspended his sentence as well as kept his license in place under the condition he pay his support regularly and on time and was on 10 years probation. You would think that would send a clear message to the person he needed to make sure he paid the payments. His support is only 275.00 a month! He works under the table for his parents to avoid having his income tax refund taken. For the last two years he paid. At the very last minute and at times later than that, but he did pay. That is till now. Again, he has stopped paying. He got an apartment with his girlfriend and is again not paying. Honestly, I do not want to see him go to jail, but he needs to understand that it is REQUIRED of him to provide some support for his child. (only one remaining home now). I have lupus and am now disabled. I had worked and had been able to cover the shortfall when he didn't pay his support. Usually ALWAYS at Christmas he would not pay and of course the worst time in the world to have a loss of income. But before I had my Christmas bonus to count on to cover. I no longer have that. I now am living on my social security disability. My medical bills take up pretty much all of my disposable income. Medicare covers most of it but certainly not all.

The thing that angers me is if the court would stop playing around with my ex, and simply let him know they mean business. Put him in jail. I am not advocating to lock him up and throw away the key. However, if they would let him cool his heels behind bars a day or two to let him get a taste of what is in store for him if he does not do as he is suppose to, he might actually take them somewhat seriously! As it is now, he sees them as a joke! I cannot say I blame him. They ARE. It would probably only take ONE time of putting him in jail.. He would take them seriously after that. It isnt that he CANT pay. It is that he wont! His support is minimal. He can afford a truck and a Harley, then he can certainly afford him small amount of child support which I would wager is less than he pays monthly for one of his toys.

For those that have the ability to pay but won't, put them in jail a night or two and I am willing to bet you will miraculously have some cash handed over! Heck in my ex's case the work has already been done. He is convicted! All that is now needed is probation revoked! Then after he has paid a lump sum amount equaling 20% of what he owes, give him another shot at the suspended sentence but then next time dont wait for him to be 4 months of no payment to act. The first time he is 30 days with no money, haul his butt back in there and I am willing to bet he will pay on time from then on.

Actually enforce what you have ruled for once! Like the original poster that is my gripe. I also had to come to court all those times, not just him. At the time, I worked. So I had to take off work to go. I had to pay to park downtown as well. So it COST me money to go. For what?

ANY non custodial parent that doesn't help support their child is a dead beat.

Nikki: The Get over it post was meant to do exactly what it did..anger the readers. My guess is it is some idiot posting that could care a less about anyone or anything. Don't waste your energy on them.

biased? : "Seems heavily biased"? Sure it does, read the name of the group this was posted to. "Firstwivesworld" Since the group that would mostly read and respond to this post would be a majority of divorces WOMEN then it would stand to reason that the responses would be mostly FROM women that are owed support. That isn't to say that Dads are the only ones that neglect their financial and emotional obligations when becoming the non-custodial parent. I have seen my fair share of women neglect their duty as well. It is very unfortunate that parents when place in the position of being a non-custodial parent are not able to find that responsible ground and be there for their children in every way they should. Unfortunately what we see more than not is the "out of sight - out of mind" mentality take hold. It would be nice if there were some kind of class a non-custodial parent had to take to help them be as successful as possible. So they could understand that while their new role has been slimmed down, it is still as vital as it was when they were a full time parent. Even more so since this is a time the child is already feeling abandoned and lost. More than ever they need to feel that the parent no longer living with them is still there.

It is hard because of the highly charged feelings that are still going on between the newly divorced parents. The hardest lesson of all is to learn to love your child more than you dislike the other parent.

You are a narcissistic: You are a narcissistic idiot---you actually stated that she should work harder or find 2nd job so you can be Disneyland Daddy every other weekend??!! You are out of your damn mind. Then you have the balls to say that you went on to spawn 6 more kids??!! It's not about the money it's about doing what you are supposed to do---I work 60 hours a week to compensate for zero child support from my ex who has a country club membership, personal trainer, housekeeper and new wife who does not work and does not have children. He saw them a total of 48 hours last month despite my constant offering of additional visitation. Why shouldn't he have to contribute to their support??? As there is no statute of limitations on back child support I hope your ex wife goes after you at some point. Be proud of yourself, loser

First off all you just pissed: First off all you just pissed me off and possibly alot more moms. We can all choose to take care of our kids and dont need there damn deadbeat dads who choose not to care but umm do remember you didnt make those damn kids on your own therefore they need to cop up some $$$$$$$$$$$$$ Are you serious sto[ trying to go to court and get revenge its not revenge its called getting wats urs aint nobody gone make no babies and take care of em you can choose not to physically but you will be makin some payments for sure its the mans choice and anyway they get wat they ask for. I love my son and do it all on my own and enjoy jus bein me and my son but you need to think of why you need the damn daddys $$$$$$$$$$$ so your kid can get wat they father owes to them. And how do you know wat her child support would go to its not ur business in the first place but i'm pretty sure most average woman put it on they kids i could be wrong but dont go thinking all moms want child support to be lazy cuz if you do screw you that one

WHAT THE @$%$ EVER: Are you stupid , "GET OVER IT" tell your kids that when they get alittle older. Her story was sad i feel bad for any single mom. I have 17yr old who's dad was in prison most of time til she was 8 she got 3 letters a week for 8 years saying her loved her and how sorry he was for missing out on her growing up he is gonna make it up to her ect,ect,ect. she was 10 when he found us and wanted to bond with her 2 yrs after he got. But she could not wait. Today he lives 4 hours away has not seen her in 3 years no calls on b-day or holladays, wait 3yrs ago she wanted straigtner for christmas he said he sent it but must of got lost in mail. Never got child support ,yet he drives new 2012 car has name brand $150 jeans thats the style my daughter would love. I tell her sorry about how he is when i can tell something hurt her. she see's his facebook about how he blew $500 at bar and pics of his sons and how he loves them so much, i know it hurts her. Then i have 14yr old son thats dad lives 10 mins away in low income apartment on public aid geting food stamps, donates plasma twice a week for $60 weekly. Nothing wrong with him support order in 2006 to pay $50 weekly never did. I didnt go back to court cause i knew he is to lazy will never work but sees son. Few years ago he won 50in flat plasma TV in drawling at donating place. i told him to let me buy it off him $500 he said no week later sold for $150 said he was worried i would tell childsupport he had it and they would take TV. My son is a teen boy dont want to go to his place ever cause he has no internet,games or cable and lives in hood. Embarrassing to son riding bus with dad to go places. On christmas teen's gifts they want are not cheap!!!! He gave him $10 and got pissed he was'nt happy, called him spoiled all because his moms lets him be, My fault..even know he never payed the $50 weekly support some reason he went to court and they lowered it $10 weekly because out of work. Court keep giving him 2 more months to get job 2 months later he was in court could not find job, told judge he was paying 10 weekly but wasnt. Last month court records say against me for him, no court date to show working nothing. So believe me i can live without getting support but i hate living knowing my kids dont understand why dads dont show them even once that they will go out of there comfort zone and put them first just once, instead of buying beer for few weeks save that donation money and and take your son to movies or some where. As the laws keep saying how they find the deadbeats. They sure do and just keep letting them live in low income housing with no kids $20 month rent and gotta eat so better give them food stamps.. nothing is wrong with this man he's 37 years old and lazy but state is helping him. It's not about the money its the kids seeing them not wanting to help........

Reply to both...mainly get over it! : I am a mother of two children. I understand both of you. "Get over it" is a bit harsh... Some are not so lucky. I do it all on my own and love it too. Times are hard but we make the best of things. However, I wish the dead beat dad in my case did not want to be involved. Instead he bribes the kids with money and see what you could have here... He does not want to raise them. He wants that contact with me. My ex does not show up to school functions, sport practices... Just games as his schedule fits. He cries to his new wife how I keep my 11 and 16 year old busy in sports so he can't see them. How about that! Well he's the one avoiding the law for other reasons. He has lost his drivers license and has now not shown up to court (one family court and another misdeamoner charge). He is narcistic. It's all about him. Not his children. It's sad. Truly sad. The man owes over 96,000 in child support. He has request a modification 6 times in the last two years. I return my paperwork. However he has never returned his, what a waste of tax payer dollars.

It's sad out system defends them instead of the ones doing right. If I were on welfare it would be different. They'd go after him a bit harder.

there were 2 (separate) full depositions taken from the kids psycologist (therapist) against him, recommend ing the children's best interest is NOT to live there!!! As well as more testimony by her under oath in court of emotional abuse with children and "parental alienation " toward the mother (me) this testimony is also on a DVD deposition I posess as well.
In a nut shell the judge says "hurry up with this case ! I am retiring next week!"
Texas family code of law PROHIBITS any parent with any of the above convictions or allegations to have custody. Bottom line, it took Judge Ramsey of Hays county 5 minutes to make this conclusion after 8 plus hours of testimony.
I just want to be heard. Hopefully this travesty of justice will or can help others find justice as well. Can you help or lead me in a direction to someone that will hear this? I am afraid of their safety. Encouraged to write by known world journalist Allen Phillips.....not knowing where to turn..? I guess I thought the people were governed by "law"
Thank you so much...
Laura

First off all get over it!!!: First off all get over it!!! If the dad don't want to be a dad who cares. Stop trying to go to court and get revenge on the dad. If he don't want to be in the kids life that's his lose. I'm a mother of 2 an 8 year old daughter and 2 month old son and I do it all on my own and I love it. I love the feeling of giving everything to them. I don't need his money because I'm their mother and I can do it on my own because im not a deadbeat trying to get child support because all that is is so you can be lazy and pay your bills. You know very well that the child support ain't going for those kids.

The court system sucks: I would like to write a book about all the people I meet and stories I hear every time I go to court. Which is often due to the fact my soon to be ex husband cannot follow a court order.
On jan 20th of this year my husband left me and my 3 boys, they were 3, 1 and 10 months at the time. He walked out for a 300lb woman he worked with moved to another state and just had another child with her. It has cost me $35k in legal fees because his lawyer drags her feet and he refuses to follow a court order. I have gone all year without child support and he continues to get a slap on the wrist. I just can't understand when is the judge going to be concerned about my children's well being. I finally got an order for the support to be collected through the collection unit and he still fails to comply. I never believed this would be my life.

I endured a custody battle: I endured a custody battle over my daughter, now 18 where the dad and his "mother" wanted my daughter so that I could pay child support to the dad to support him. They tried desperately to use the situation to sell "kits" to teach other fathers "how to get custody." I spent every dime I have ever earned protecting my daughter from her father who became addicted to meth.

His mother paid tons of money to keep the fight going, as was her redneck, pathetic mentality. She would not pay for treatment for her son, but would pay for attorneys.

Since his family was a pack of pit bulls...southern religious types from Polk County, Florida they lied in court, cheated with income and still continue to lie, cheat, and steal. They believe that you earn money under the table and they have the right to get welfare, food stamps, medicaid...which is why they wanted my daughter. One last word. I am owed over 65,000.00 and if I don't get it....they will all go down. I can smell the audit and the food stamp fraud brewing...They can suck it.

I ain't bitter...but my family has suffered because this deadbeat SUED ME FOR PATERNITY when all I wanted was my freedom away from the white trash DAD unfortunately was born into...his "momma" can pay up or lose it all. I won't stop....I won't. I wish he would blow his brains out and take his fat, bible thumping momma with him. I have started a book titled "Work to Welfare." It will be an expose of crooked judges, DOR and the entire ball of wax in the great state of Florida.....I feel for you all. We are heroes.

Lack of Cs in mass ex-husband made me loose home: When an ex-husband does not pay Cs a mere $117 week for TWO children, lives off the system and has absoultely with our two beautiful kids, he is on drugs and does not show up for court. Live in MA. Due to o child support I lost our home, have worked in same job at college for 27+ years, supporting 2 kids alone. After loosing the home I bought and having to pay him half do the homes equity, he moved to NH and has never seen kids.

He now has his new GF who's stalked me on Face Book until I saw her ace when he finally shows up in court. He was arrested in ma and sent to jail for 5 days.

It's the day before Christmas eve and I am shocked my two kids 14 and 18 want to go to see his brothers and sisters at a Christmas party. I realize it is their choice bit I feel hurt, betrayed and like I have been punched in the gut. What have they ever done for us? Help us when we lost the home, given us money for food, NO.

I commend the fathers who take raising a child seriously and pay their ex- wife for housing, loving, feeding, taking kids to sports, going to pto school meetings, dr. Appointments, hospitals, buy all the clothes, food, birthday and Christmas presents. While I sit here alone (no significant other) years roll down my eyes, the past 6 years has been torture, stressful and losing my home devastating. I am so exhausted and broke, I am legit depressed right before Christmas again. I felt like it was rude for kids to go to a party just to get gifts,..,I mean the other side of the family has done nothing to help us and the dead bead dad does not even send oil kids Christmas gifts. I really wish there was a Santa or Karma finally hit my way, i need a good man, I try to be positive but they knew I was or happy with their selfish choice. Another lonely night for me wrapping their gifts while I get shit for Christmas! People who complain their house needs a pool or new bathroom tiles or a new dishwasher -PLEASE!! - be grateful you live the life you do! Die to no fault of my own, I Lost everything, I have nothing and fearing I have no love left to give to anyone...Holidays suck and people only care about themselves. They say it takes a village...where is the help for moms that WORK and are NOT on welfare or food stamps! System is fractured and so unfair.

are you kidding me ? that is: are you kidding me ? that is the most outrageous thing I have ever heard. The reason that child support is enforced is because it is legal and moral and ethical to pay for your children.

Deadbeat moms are the worst. : Deadbeat moms are the worst. My ex and I began our divorce process when right after my daugther turned 2 years old. She had another child from a previous marriage that she has custody of. We filed the paperwork (which she filled out herself and I signed) to state that I was to have primary physcial and legal custody of our child are relocate her out of state (she was active duty military, I had already left active duty). When she realized how much support she was going to have to pay, she challenged the documents she created in court and 13 months later, we were finally divorced. I spent thousands of dollars to ultimately get custody with her to pay child support when my daugther began school. My daughter was set to begin school in August 2011 and a few days before I was to pick her up after my ex's summer visitation ended, she said she didn't think my child was ready and she needed to be tested by a doctor to determine her readiness. Well... the doctor did the testing and informed her and me that it would be harmful if she did NOT start school. This was simply another way to not pay child support. At this time my ex had already left active duty and began a civilian position with the military making over 40000/year. She had already remarried someone (her 3rd marriage at age 26), and was pregnant with her 2nd child by him. I applied for services with the state we were divorced to get a child support order established since my daughter had began school and that is what the divorce decree stated. She drug her feet and was able to get a court hearing instead of a required default judgement for not responding and providing service to the child support calculations. 2 months later we finally have court and a default judgment is put into place. My ex tells the judge she is going to quit her job. They determined the child support she should pay and it is just over 400/month. By the time a written order is in place, her first payment is due 4/15/12. In July, we go to court because she had yet to make a payment. The judge lets her off easy and tells her to pay 100/month starting in August, then in October, she better make the full payment or she will be thrown in jail. She made 100 in Aug & Sept, come October & November, she continues to make the 100/month. She is taken back to court (both times by the regional child support office). Due to living 1000 miles away and my work schedule during the Christmas season, I could not attend, even by phone. I was informed the judge told her just make 200 in payments by 1/15, and the full payment by 2/15. Essentially the judge told her to skip to more payments and all is okay. To date she has paid 400 and owes almost 8000 in back support going back to when my daughter began school and interest. Luckily I do not need the money since I have a good job, and receive veteran's benefits.

Although I do not need a dime from her, she should do the right thing and support her child as ordered. I feel bad for the parents and children that do need the support, but don't get what is needed since little regard is given to their circumstances. The court is not aware of my income since they never asked for it since the state my divorce was in does not take the custodial parents income into consideration.

I hope my ex enjoys the loser she married, who according to his ex wife's court documents, has been kicked out of rehab atleast 2 times, and a recent dui, was arrested and pled guilty to a crime (received diversion) for attempting to sexually assualt her, as of last year was still trying to have sex with his ex, while is new wife (my ex) was pregnant with their child. Karma's a bitch. You get what you deserve.

No back child support, the: No back child support, the child support starts soon as the father tooken to court and judge orders and after that and father don't pay. then its concider back child support after a long period of time of not paying when ordered to. And if the mother does go after the dad for child support after Dna proves he the father, he still will not have legal rights. The father would have to take the mother to court for rights over the child. Its all about the judge decisions. Thats the truth

When I was pregnant with my: When I was pregnant with my oldest daughter, her dad was never around. He didn't meet her until she was 2. When I took him for child support, he started claiming she wasn't his so they ordered a paternity test. When it came back that he was without a doubt her father, they ordered cs and for him to pay arrears from the time she was born.

child support: Mothers are just as bad my step daughters mother wont pay her 150 a month in child support nor will she even attempt to help with expenses she wa even offered as to not persue support to purchase school supplies and 3 outfits twice a year and she wouldnt do that she has not once even gotten her a single christmas present her entire life

stop: Stop having unprotected sex out of wedlock. It takes a village to raise a child. But taking care of a child by yourself?? Please.... Food run then you and ur child can pan handle. Not me and mines. You don't do dirt to people then. Men go around and have babies all over the place while women complain about she needs money. He don't want to pay because he has to take care of_ his household. I commend you for saying people need to grow up. You're right. Moreover people need to practice safe sex and celibacy because child deserves a family, stability emotionally and financially.

Take it and get on with ya life: Its sad for majority of you talking about "its all about the money". F u think it takes to take care of a child? Not. just LOVE. Kids are expensive they need food, shelter, clothes, soap, daycare, vitamins, a ride, strollers, car seat, medicine. Who will cover the custodial parents when the child is sick for a week and child can't go to school and the custodial parent can't go to work? The rent man don't want no excuses. So custodial parent should get a second job? The custodial parent don't have time on his/her hands for that. Custodial parents have to cook, clean,& raise that child. Women may carry the loads majority of the time but MEN understand that women are dealing with pregnancy, giving birth, & being the primary provider. Sometimes women do it all by themselves without help. Some women minds get screwed up but men will never understand until it happens to their sisters or mothers. Dead beat mother's just need to drink acid. They're the worst of the worst. They need to kill themselves. Men its not that the system favor the women. They favor the custodial parent. Men just don't understand the system. Their incompetent. If ur the non-custodial parent, just write the other parent a check or get a money order $200 a month because u have to pay something regardless. Just like the child is going to need diapers regardless. It goes both ways... Believe or not, some women loose in child support when the father produce those checks or money orders. We all got to do better. To u non-custodial parents; just you dropped off a box of diapers 2 months ago, F out of here. EVERY CHILD NEEDS STABILITY!!!!!!
Women need to keep they poom poom in their panties, we won't have these problems
.

reply: Me and my daughters father couldn't make it work and even when we were living together I paid my own pills and paid for food and clothes toys etc. for our daughter and now he owes back child Support and only sees her 4 days out of every month. All my earnings go toward get education, clothing, food, shelter, extra curriculums so ya I deff believe fathers need to pay to support there children you don't wanna don't have any kids and on top of it to get another girl pregnant but can't afford one kid. I'm sorry but there's too many guys out there who should have to work or be reprimanded for there actions. There's too many mothers busting there asses alone taking care if these kids.

deadbeat moms are just as at fault as deadbeat dads! : courts are gender biased, i finally after 7 years of custody got an order from az, (my boys and i live in ca) for 250 with no arrears!!!! and i have medical bills etc, as far as i am concerned deadbeat parents should be not allowed to see thier kids , they gave up that right through lack of responsibility. And they should be put in work camp and half thier wages taken until they are caught up, as well as do volunteer work while in work camp to contribute back to the community as these acts of neglect effect communities financially as well as the private family.

Why not just take care of: Why not just take care of your kids on your own instead of spending all of your energy and money trying to get support you won't get. Show your kids that you have pride in yourself.

Father: First of all a father. My daughter Layla will be 10 on April. My ex broke up with me when Layla was 3 months old. She went to the courthouse demanding me to stay away until we went to court in fear I would run off with my daughter. First of all I would NEVER do that. I was so in love with my soon to be wife and new daughter. She broke up with me when Layla was 3 months old in July of 2003, I didn't get to see my daughter until November of 2003. One day I had everything and the next day I lost it all. Now I only see my daughter for one month in the summer and 3-5 days around Christmas. I'm paying $562 a month and can't see her regularly cause we live 5 hours away now. 4 years after we broke up she me someone new and had another kid, and 3-4 months later she got rid of him and is now getting $1200 a month in child support. She's engaged to him now and still gets his child support. I would give anything to be in my daughters life, but I'm forced to pay her every month for something she did to me. She ruined my life. And now when people see I have a daughter that isn't around, they look at me different and think I'm a deadbeat. Just because a father isn't around doesn't always mean he's a deadbeat. I got laid off in July and have fallen behind because of that. Now the court is gonna take away my license. I asked my ex for help with an extension and she said the only way your not paying is if you sign over your parental rights so when Adam and I get married Layla doesn't have a different last name. Oh I forgot, when Layla was born my ex refused to give her my last name just incase we ever broke up. We actually got in an argument in the hospital cause she sprung it out of nowhere. So she had every intention of leaving me. So now I've gone through the worst 9 years of my life, battled an addiction because of it, went to detox and got clean and am on mood stabilizers and antidepressants. All I ever wanted to do was raise a child and experience all those amazing things. I missed every important day in her life. I can't afford to have a family now and pay child support on top of it. The only experience I got was taken away from me. I'm sorry for the rant, I just needed to get my story out. Thanks

Make it about the Children, not the spouse: Put yourself in the non-custodial parents place. Look up in the guidelines what you would have to pay if he had custody for child support, and remember thats net that you pay in the guide lines, so you pay that amount after tax. Then figure out what the additional costs of lunch, gas, parks, cloths, trips or whatever else that you would normally do with the kids on a daily basis, multiply that by 31 days as unless you only consider yourself a part time parent. Add the two totals together, subtract that from your monthly pay checks and see how well you would get by on the remainder... that is to pay mortgage, property taxes, water, gas, hydro, water heater rental, phone, cable, internet, food, car and house insurance, gasoline, still buying cloths and cleaners that you need. Now would you have to downsize to where your kids don't have there own room, meaning that now they can't stay overnight, which means that you now have less quality time to spend with them as there are no kisses good night, hugs and kisses and I love you in the mornings. All because you pay support. I would rather be a dead beat and spend time and do things, and buy them things they need and be an active part of their lives. It took my ex almost 4 years to stop the support payments, and she would tell you that the kids an her have a much better and complete lifestyle now. The animosity between us is gone, and a new FRIENDSHIP has grown. The children are so much happier, and she sees that now. If things NEED to be bought and she can't afford it... whether its for her or the children, I buy it or give her money for it. I have moved on and had more children, 6 in total, and everyone is happy. I am happy to do it, and buy most of their clothe when they come visit. I do make more money than her, but she can always get a better or 2nd job. that should no longer be MY problem. Go back to school and get better qualifications if YOU want more money. Keep it about whats best for the kids!!!

Courts are quick to give the mothers custody, as most men work and can pay child support, so this keeps welfare costs down to a minimum. It's one thing when a father wants nothing to do with his children, make him pay, but if he spends equal or more quality time with the kids (overnights, sports, gymnastics, music, etc...)... child support should never never be an issue, none should be paid.
When two REASONABLE ADULTS are in charge and thinking of what is BEST for the CHILDREN, instead of what is best for mommy or daddy, which is normally what happens, children thrive. But, that hardly ever happens. All a spouse can think of is I'M HURT, how can I hurt them back!!!! MONEY!!!
The problem is if you take them to court for support, the Children are already starting to lose money to lawyers, and through PROPER parenting, and if you have kids you know that it always cost something almost everytime you go out. Proper parenting, from two parents stop once one parent knows that they are going to be on the hook to now pay additional support to the spouse. If you pay support and want to go out to do things with the children that you used to do before payments, like skiing trips or go-carting, does child support come back to the payer? No way. So now that you pay double what you used to do do the same things with the kids, you feel ripped off, and start not taking the kids. Now the kids are bored because they don't do anything when they come your home, which still needs to be able to support them the same way as the Primary Residence home, even though the courts feel that you only need a room to live in,.. thats why they set the support so high , plus it keeps you working so you don't starve. Courts like to back date payments to start from to day Primary Residence was applied for. Once the other parent gets notice served to them, that they are no longer an equal, (speaking from experience.. twice.., it is how you feel), the battle OVER the kids, not FOR the kids has begun. Now the LOSERS have been defined(KIDS), and the war to become the winner has become the most important fight for both so-called parents. Both bringing in the sides of the families, to show what a great person I am, and what a lousy person the other parent is, and if you are dumb enough to think the children are not hearing most of it, then you should not have the kids in the first place. When you know that more support is going to be ordered, taking the kids out for lunch , buying clothing, going to amusment parks, ... normal things that caring parents do, that all stops as the courts want payments made as if only one CUSTODIAN has to do it all by themselves. It's all about the money... ie: mommy or daddy whom ever is receiving it, no longer that the children have two loving parents to do things with although separately.. and if the parents can be mature enough, maybe sometimes together
When people move on to or with another relationship, its because they don't want to be with you. Don't take it out on the children. Don't take it to court. Grow up and figure out if you can support the kids on your own, or if they would be better off with your ex, or ex and new spouse. After all,everyone is entitled to be happy and move on. No one should be TOLD to pay support, they should be ordered to spend quality time with the children. If they refuse that, then you and your children are better off by yourself or a new partner.
Moral of the story is: If YOU can't afford to keep the kids by yourself, and he can and wants to. Let him. Take the kids whenever and often as possible, and remember that you used to buy stuff when you lived with your ex,
so continue doing it and you will see that even though the money does not go to you (this goes for spousal also), the CHILDREN are the WINNERS in this war that should never have happened. Remember that a PARENT will want to be a parent. A pay check can't ever replace a parent

There's always two sides to a story.: Be careful not to step in the bull#@$!. I gladly gave my ex girlfriend $300 a month. I only make 1600 a month from the Post 911 GI Bill so I thought this was more than fair. She decided to request child support. Now I only have to give $120 a month and get to see him more. I support in any way I can...you people trying like hell to just get money are scumbags.

DEADBEAT MOTHER: The women that continually take their ex husbands back to court to get their child support upped ARE money hungry. You can't tell me that a child ranging anywhere from 1 month to 17 yrs old will eat more than $200.00 a month in groceries. That is being generous. I am a grown man and my monthly grocery bill is roughly $160.00 a month. Take that extra $40.00 a month and buy some clothes for the kid. These women that are ravaging their ex husbands bank accounts for $1,500.00 to $2,000.00 a month for one or two kids is ridiculous. $400.00 a month for one child is too much if you ask me. If they need money for other school expenses fine, If it were me I'd be happy to pay 100% of those costs. It still won't add up to be $400.00 a month in total for the year. That's $4800.00!!! There isn't a price I am not willing to pay to see my child happy, but when his mother takes the "extra" money and blows it on frivolous things, like an ipod touch with a docking station, a flat new flat screen, new heels and purses, getting her nails done professionally, and getting her hair dyed and cut twice a month, which probably costs at least $100 each time, there is something wrong. There are SO many women that abuse the system it isn't even funny. Not just child support, it's welfare too. They sit at home watching Oprah, worrying about whether or not they are going to get their nail appt. scheduled to get their $120 nails filled, before they will think twice about telling their child to go make a bologna sandwich when they say they are hungry. My ex wife is a prime example. She had two kids from a previous marriage when we were married. All I ever heard come out of her mouth towards those two were negative, derogatory remarks when her children would do so much as ask her a simple question. She seemed bothered by them 98% of the time. Those two kids were scared of their own mother. She despised me because I gave them structure, and talked to them in a normal tone of voice when they interacted with me. It took all of about 2 months for those kids to tell me they loved me, and the words straight from their mouths when they confided in me were, "We don't like Mommy because she always yells at us and she doesn't like us." That was ultimately the reason we ended up in divorce, because I took better care of her children than she did. I am just barely behind on my child support as of today's date. Does that make me a deadbeat dad?

My child's Deadbeat Dad just skipped the Country: My ex is 15,000 in arrears for the last 7 years. He has been ordered to have an income deduction but since moving back to the state of Florida he has ignored the order. The department of Revenue still has done nothing to him since March of this year. Now I just learned he skipped to the Cayman Islands to work. Good Luck in seeing his sorry butt or any kind of support now. Does anyone possibly know what steps I can take now. The state of Florida obviously never suspended his passport, because he renewed it in 2010. He also owes back Alimony as well.

Well Said: "When it comes down to a 50/50 split why does the male still have to pay support?" --- Absolutely. When the two parents split, so does the responsibility of raising the child/children. If the mother/father cannot support the child then at least give the parent time with the child so that the child knows love from that parent. When it comes right down to it, love is all there is, except food, clothing and shelter.

Deadbeat PARENTS: My husband has full custody of his 3 kids. When they divorced, she had the kids but then she took off for 18mos and he wasn't able to find them. He paid over $1000/mo to child support in AZ but they wouldn't tell him where his kids were. Finally he found them living at a relative's house, malnourished, neglected and abused. They hadn't been to drs, dentists and had been in 4 different school districts. So he was given full custody of the kids. (We don't live in AZ, but the kids did w/their mom). So the judge after all this, doesn't ask where the $1000+/mo was going, since they were homeless and instead when he orders her to pay child support tells her that since she's knocked up by an unknown man and has nowhere to live, he gives her $0 in child support for 15mos so she can "et on her feet". She's still supposed to help pay the kids medical bills becuase we have private health insurance and they had a lot of issues that weren't covered. To this day nothing. Not one penny. She' past due on support payments for 13mos now. She only has to pay $150/mo. She's past due on over $10,000 in medical expenses, since the little girl had to be hospitalized due to the neglect. (She never spent a day in jail for the neglect either!).

My husband paid his support, on time, every time. This woman has yet to pay a dime. We haven't gone back to court to enforce it. We don't have welfare so no one collects for us. She's just supposed to mail a check once/mo. My husband and I decided that we can take care of it. Let the woman be a deadbeat. In the end, those kids will know who was there and who took care of them. It would cost so much money to take her to court and we STILL wouldn't see a dime. Courts NEED stricter laws. Can't afford your kids? et a 2nd job. If you weren't a non-custodial parent and you weren't paying for your kids, social workers would take them away to foster families who could care for them, right? Why then, just because there's one responsible parent involved, does the irresponsible parent have any right to the kids? Should be the same either way.

It's time to stop putting all the negative on the father's and making mom's out to be saints. There are plenty of deadbeat PARENTS, of either gender in this country.

Advice please...anyone: ok this is in a nut shell but here it goes....If a guy and a girl (not married) hook up one night and a few months later this girl starts telling people she is pregnant but dosnt know who the father is....the kid is born but no father is present for the birth nor has the father ever even met his kid. The mother and father havnt even spoke since b4 the child was born. Now my question is.... If a woman had a child with no legall DNA test done, no signiture by the father on birth cirtificate and the mother and father have not spoke at all and father has never met the kid what can happen as far as child support. I know the father dosnt owe anythgin untill atleast a legall DNA test is done but once that is done will the father owe back child support even if he was legally un aware he was even a father? And if this girl does decide to persue the person she thinks is the father will that father in turn have legal rights to that child....

My husband has a child that: My husband has a child that he is in the rears the money amount is irrelevant. Just as 90% of the "mothers" on here complaining about money, the child's mother never lets him see the child.( as they were never married) she does not work, she is abusive, and neglectful. She spend her days trying to find the next Place to drop him off so she can have fun. When we are aloud to spend time with him, and after we droP him off. We get to deal with two days of text messages saying we will never see him again tell the whole family to kiss him good bye because we are dead to him. Mean while she moves 5 times a year taking him from new school to new school. She has then man that beats her in front of him calling him dad. He tells us that he stays up all night listening to them fight and call each other mean names. He also tell us that her fears his moms life. Her previouse boy friend got his house raided while my step son was living there. The polie found drugs guns and large an amounts of cash. Mean while my husband that would love to have a real loving relationship with his child is told he is not aloud to see him because he is behind on child support. But hey all of you women are worried about is money. Children services will not do anything because the child is not the one being hit. Even though he is in constant fear. I would have to say in a world where women receive full custody just for the act that they birthed a baby is a crock, and if child support is automatically given so should partial custody. Most human beings male or female are not going to succeed as anything even a parent when all odds are stacked against then just because of their gender.

And ps.
I know of at least three mothers who have lost their children and are over 50,000 dollars in the rear so this dead beat dad crap is out.

Court orders: I would say that YOU sound entitled to receive money from your ex-husband. Don't frame it as though he didn't help you pay for a house for your children. He didn't help you pay for a house for yourself that you ordinarily couldn't afford. That also doesn't mean he doesn't love his children. It just means he no longer loves you.

Our kids just don't matter to the law: I have found that it does not matter if the NCP (non-custodial parent) makes a CHOICE to remain unemployed or purposely under-employed to avoid support, it does not matter if the NCP works for family for cash, it does not matter that they fail to appear, and owe OVER $102K, it does not matter that family places assets in other members names, it does not matter that these kids are being robbed of opportunities due to a price tag....

What is heartbreaking is in letting this NCP go without seeing justice, is that it tells the disabled boy who will never live on his own does not matter, that the younger sibling that one day will be responsible for his care does not matter, to tell this disabled child that he will have to figure out how to survive on $700/mo (ssi) for the rest of his life, to tell these boys that the courts feel it does not matter that they are left behind in extracurricular activities, that it does not matter that they go with out seeing the CP because they work 3 jobs.

When was it ever okay that our kids did not matter? We are owed $102K and still being told that the NCP is responsible for voluntarily making payment. Thanks DCSS -- California

child support: my husband walked away when I took him to court for $2000.n a rears. He was ordered to make his payments current that day or go to jail. He walked when my daughter was 13 and my son 8 and he never looked back, no birthday cards or calls, nothing, just walked away.

Then he surfaced when my son was 31 and getting married and legally changed his name to my current husband's name as he is the one who raised him; who did parent/teacher conferences, science projects, soccer games, football games, college tests, teaching to drive. When my ex saw that court ordered posting of my son changing his name he wanted it stopped but had no power. He called me to get our son to talk to him and smuggling eluded that I finally could not go after him anymore since the youngest child was over eighteen, way over eighteen. I have found out that child support has no "running out." It is a bill that is due until it is paid off, no matter how far past eighteen the youngest one gets.

I worked two jobs for 5 years, a year and a half of that five years I worked 3 jobs to put a roof over their heads, clothes of their backs, but most importantly to give them medical insurance. All the while I was doing this he was vacationing in the Caribbean regularly and spending money on other women, his lifestyle never affected. Now I can not get a lawyer to take the case. If I had gone on welfare the state of California would have moved all the rocks this slime was hiding under to get him to pay them back, but me by myself, no help. He got to live another life free of children and obligations, to become an active member in the city he lived in all the while no one knowing he was worse than a deadbeat dad. He didn't have explain where daddy had gone, that he'd rather be with his girlfriends than be bothered with you. He didn't have explain that Mommy would never divorce them.

What kind of legal system rewards a citizen for spitting back their face and punishes the parent that stays gets the kids through college and weddings on he own, adding years to her face from all the stress that two people together decided that they wanted these two children, no shot gun marriage here, l

According to a lawyer friend who does only estate planning, he now owes me #75,000. in in child support, penalties, and interest. You'd think a lawyer would be interested in the money alone. But unless I find his exact address, a lawyer doesn't even want to be bothered, just knowing the small town he lives in isn't enough; they want me to do all the work so that they charge me for it out the other end.

Single mothers have no help unless they want to surrender their self respect and go on welfare.

What a disaster: There is two sides to every story. Both men AND woman are able to show lack of empathy towards an ex partner. The truth is there are both men and woman out there who are being kicked while they are down. The problem comes when I read comments from woman who say their ex's deserve to be in jail, etc etc. Around here, if you are white and male you have no chance. Most guys I know who pay child support are paying to see kids they cannot even see. When it comes down to a 50/50 split why does the male still have to pay support? What about those folks who get remarried and use the support that comes from an ex partner to suppliment their income? Why is visitation and support two different entities? Why does the court say they take everything into consideration when they do not? You people are focusing on sort of a "revenge" tactic kinda outlook. Sorry ladies but that isn't fair at all. If you continue to compound issues on your ex partners how does that make things work out in the end? I think this whole idea needs a complete overhaul. And to the O.P. You cannot make an article that is clearly biased and expect everyone to take you seriously. Open your mind, and start showing some damned empathy, it's free and meant to share and when you give you get back.

There is two sides to every: There is two sides to every story. Both men AND woman are able to show lack of empathy towards an ex partner. The truth is there are both men and woman out there who are being kicked while they are down. The problem comes when I read comments from woman who say their ex's deserve to be in jail, etc etc. Around here, if you are white and male you have no chance. Most guys I know who pay child support are paying to see kids they cannot even see. When it comes down to a 50/50 split why does the male still have to pay support? What about those folks who get remarried and use the support that comes from an ex partner to suppliment their income? Why is visitation and support two different entities? Why does the court say they take everything into consideration when they do not? You people are focusing on sort of a "revenge" tactic kinda outlook. Sorry ladies but that isn't fair at all. If you continue to compound issues on your ex partners how does that make things work out in the end? I think this whole idea needs a complete overhaul. And to the O.P. You cannot make an article that is clearly biased and expect everyone to take you seriously. Open your mind, and start showing some damned empathy, it's free and meant to share and when you give you get back.

Deadbeat Dad: My ex only has to pay 149.00 monthly which he doesn't pay courts keep putting orders for arrest on him they know where he lives with his parent's. He gets to see his child every other weekend which he never meets me to pick up his child or drop the child back off just his mother, and he doesn't even stay around for the weekend he ends up going out partying or something my child always comes home upset she didn't get to see her dad. The guy is 45 years old grow up.......

Deadbeat and Fed Up: The Court system is screwed up ... I work in it and my ex is over 70K in the rears ... I cant even get his stupid license suspended ... at what point do the court start helping the mothers instead of letting the deadbeats skate by with no consequences to the non action???? Sooooo fed up.

I understand your: I understand your frustration. There are deadbeats both ways. But controlling how child support is spent is not the answer if you weren't married. If you were married, you can have that written into the divorce decree, if you both agree on it or if the judge enforces it.

My husband and I are getting a divorce and $1159 of my child support goes to the house first (because it's in both our names) so that leaves me with $400 to take care of my kids on. I stayed home for 10 years while helping build our business, he took off with the money & is suppose to be paying at least $2250, so right now I'm screwed. At least until we go back to court. However, I've never withheld visitation. Except on a few occasions when he just wouldn't show up in time & expect to still take the kids. No, it's a strict schedule & not letting him control my life any longer.

The problem is that you can't control how the custodial parent spends the money. Or there would be even more fighting because the custodial parent could never budget. This month I want it spent on his school supplies, well now he wants a drum set, etc. Get my drift? If you do not have control of the child, you can't be in control on how the money is spent.

Unfortunately, there are lots of people that don't put the kids needs first. But there are also lots of people that do, and maybe still can't afford the extra things you have so generously provided for your son. Every case is different.

True definition of deadbeat: My daughter is going to be 17 in a month, that's a year older than her father and I were when we had her. We were off and on from 15 to 19yrs old when it finally ended, I waved off almost 5k off his support once and even after that he has never kept himself out of arrears. I remained a single parent for about 11yrs during that time he was in and out of her life, jail, and drugs. He got married had 4 more kids, lost 3 of them to state and rarely pays for the two he still has rights to. While he was doing all this I was raising two kids on my own working up to two jobs at a time to support us, buying a home on my own at the age of 25, and going to college and getting a degree. My experience is that if you refuse visitation to a deadbeat nothing will come of it. I stopped letting him take our daughter over night several years ago when I noticed a down fall to my daughters mental health by prolonged stays with her father. This guy is very manipulative and smart, unfortunately he thinks that he can out smart anyone which was his down fall. When I told him he couldn't take her over night any longer, first he threatened to show up with the cops, I replied that I be waiting, when that didn't work he went to the court and filed violation of visitation. I received a letter from the court that I had to respond to explaining why i was doing this. The first thing I did was my research, I read up on child support law and what reasons a Judge would revoke visitation and then gave those reasons, with proof of it in our case, from letters of recommendation from my daughters counselor, to copies of court documents that had him, himself saying that he was mentally unstable. With every point I made in the letter there was a corresponding court document number that went with it. After making my point in the letter I sent a copy to her father and the court, I think that was when he realized i was more informed than he thought and I have not heard a word about it since! Mean while my daughter has been doing great, she still speaks to her father, but keep in mind i never said he couldn't see her I simply said he couldn't take her over night. He has made several comments to her about coming to see her and never does, she is older now and she see it for herself. To all of you out there with real deadbeats my advice to you is "Knowledge is power"!

I wonder what all the women: I wonder what all the women in this forum (including you) would do if the majority of men got the child from the start, women are forced to pay a high percentage of their checks for child support and pay for health insurance. Go to court for fairness and a just decision just to try to see your child. And the judge doesn't care nor grants rights JUST because he is a man. Get it!!!!! This is why some men don't care. There is a pattern here. No justice in court makes a person bitter. Yeah yeah yeah....about the kids right!?!?!? BS!!!

And I am a man that has 2 children. I have 50:50 custody of both of my children. First one I don't pay a penny....her mother and I made a child together and we are taking care of the child even though we are both split. My son's mother is a different story. Seems like when women get on the system....instant laziness and the justice gets very merky. Sort of funny that my first child does better than the 2nd. And I have a better chance of getting 100% custody over the deadbeat mom who sits on her butt, keeps having more children to get more money. Just because you have your child doesn't shield you from being a deadbeat. I pay child support for the 2nd child and have him more than half of the time and pay his health insurance. When I go to court to say I have him more and she agrees....but not to 100% custody. The court still sides with her.

If the system was fair....there would be a lot less "deadbeats". Period!!!

Really, Dude!!!!: I know that not every man should be considered a "deadbeat" and that I would agree on because my husband is a wonderful father that pay over 1000 dollars a month in child support for his 3 kids and take care of the one child we have together plus helps me support the one I have with a "DEADBEAT". So I could understand from both sides, but, one things for sure there is a lot of men out there NOT taking care of their children's than there are men that do but the majority of deadbeats are greater than the man that do support because some of the men that are paying child support are forced they are not doing it on their own. I don't agree with any women that doesn't allow their children to see the father weather they are paying child support or not because at the end of the day it is about the kids and the only one suffering in all this is the kids. Now as far as all those men that feel that they should only have to pay whatever is ordered by the court and nothing else, to me your just as bad as a deadbeat because your only paying because you have to not because your suppose to, you feel that you shouldn't have to pay for anything else other than what is ordered by the court than who do you think suffers and for you to complain about doing what your suppose to do says a lot without saying nothing at all... for all those men that don't know what child support means let me break it down for you.... child support is to contribute to the roof being provided over the child head, the lights for the child to see, the water for the child to take a bath, the food for the child to eat this is called a child's BASIC needs that is what child support is for and in some states they would include medical insurance that either the father would provide or a percentage to cover what the mother provide. but child support does not include the other needs the a child has such as the clothes on their backs, the shoes on their feet, the toys that they want, the extra curricular activities, the school field trip and science projects, and school supplies, the cable TV for their entertainments, the co pays at the doctor, dental and vision, the out of pocket medical expenses that the insurance won't cover and the prescriptions that has to paid for when their are sick etc.... this is what you men fail to realize that it take a lot more then a few hundred dollars a month to raise a child, so for all the men that feel that us women would have the easy part of the job...Go buy a clue! I hate it when a man feels that 200 or 300 hundred dollars is all they should be paying and nothing more. Do the math and tell me do you really think it's 50/50? I don't think so any real parent who loves and wants the best for the children would see that. it is not about who's the better parent it's what is best for the child. I have an 11 year old daughter who "deadbeat" refuse to help. For 8 years "NOTHING" no help and I NEVER stopped him from seeing her, finally after 8 years I finally got him on child support, his order was 248.00 per month and an additional 52.00 for arrears totally 300.00 and he was to provide medical insurance. He paid for almost a year never provided any medical and then he stopped and decided he wanted to take me to court because he wanted 50/50 time sharing, his sister told me that he was doing this because he found out if he got 50/50 time sharing he would not have to pay child support because he would have the child the same amount of time as me each year. well long story short he got a lawyer, I got a lawyer and we battled it out. the judge saw right through him and denied him 50/50 we established visitation and I did a modification for child support with he thought won't change because he was not working when the child support was granted and he still was not working but because he was not providing health insurance like he was suppose to and I was they increased his child support to 389.70 plus 50.00 for arrears totaling 439.70 monthly. he has yet to pay a dime, it has been over a year since I've received anything in June of this year the child support office filed a motion for contempt. we went to court, he still had no job but I found out that he was doing a catering thing on the side, the judge held him in contempt and ordering him to pay 600 in 30 days or he would go to jail. he made the payment the day before the due date and I haven't seen a dollar since then, he told me he had gotten a job in Oct of this year and that he would start paying his child support we are now going into Dec and I haven't seen a dime, I asked if he could help me buy some shoes for our daughter for back to school in Aug he said he would give me 100 dollars I am still waiting for the 100 dollars, it a good thing I wasn't holding my breath because I would be dead right now and not once have I ever stopped him from seeing or talking to my daughter. He is a true definition of a deadbeat dad. On the other hand there is my husband who has three kids from a previous marriage, one of the kids is not his that is why they divorced and he pays 1069.00 a month in child support for all of them even the one that is not his and he provides medical for all the kids as well. My husband has two jobs so that he is able to provide for all of our kids my daughter included and he is putting me through nursing school with no help. on top of that he has not seen his kids in over 3 years because the mother refuses to allow he to see them even through my husband pay his child support faithfully and don't owe her nothing in arrears she is till a B because he left her after she cheated so what do you call that, a really great man and father.

I can give you some answers on that: I agree that every single right is for the women, and I do know this from experience. I am a women, I am married, 5 years ago my husband had an afare. The result of that a child was born. When he submits any forms for child support his whole household income has to be reported on those papers, including anything I bring into the home(is that fair? considering the whole afare and had nothing to do with me) She has married but yet her husbands income does not matter what so ever in his child support. If that does not favor the women what does? She wants her husband to be this childs dad and wants my husband to have nothing at all to do with the child, but wants his money to help out her useless tit of a husband. I live on the other end of a nightmare that is relentless against men. The man has to fight every single right he should have for the child, but they take more of the womens consideration into fact. They do not look at all of the facts and they do not assess every case for what it is, they have guidelines and they do not waver from them. I agree whole hearted there are deadbeats, but it is just not the case for all. My husband is behind in his payments and why because at least once every six months she calls or texts or facebooks him, that she doesnt want his money and she wants him to sign his rights away. He meets with her and they come to agreements(no worries I am at every meeting) and she never follows tho. So I see the eveil that are women. any women knows how eveil we can be, this is just her way of getting back at me of course you know for calling her a home wrecker a skank so on and so on. there is so much more I could say but believe me I live this every day for the past 5 years. She has every and all right and the system allows it infact the system created it. You can look everything up online no adays, read for yourself its all in the laws.

what about: I own child support to the the mother of my daughter...but there is a few catches....Like when they set the child support we were together, They set it back to the date the child was born (putting me two years behind from the start) and then after the mother got child support she dumped me and moved out of state. I have been paying child support since but have not seen my child and the state will do nothing to help me see her. I have not seen my child in over 3 years. Last year I broke my arm well actually I ripped my shoulder out of place with a third degree seperation and can not get it fixed. I am back to work now but I missed a year of work and due to that got even farther behind in child support. The state of missouri tryed to throw me in jail for non support. When the lawyer seen my paprwork from the DR saying I could not work he looked right at me and said " well he is not physically stopping you now is he" my point to all of this is that some times the father that is behind in child support is not a dead beat dad at all. Just do not throw everyone of us that is behind in child support together. I am paying child support trying to get caught up, but the state here says I am a deadbeat. The lawyer even called me one in open court becuase I in his words was "a lazy dead beat dad that needed to go to jail becuase all I did all day was do drugs and play video games" I have never did drugs, offered right there to take a drug test, and on top of everything this was the first time I have ever been in trouble...but in his eyes I am no better then all the other guys around...I know some dead beat dads. I know a guy that got behind in child support 50k before the state he lived in would touch him...then he forced the mom to sign off on all of it by holding a gun to her head. thats a dead beat dad that needs in jail....

What do you have to do to get child support?: I know what should be done. All Noncustodial Parents who are in arrears......

1st Should be fixed to where they can't have anymore children since they can't support the child/children who are already here.

2nd If they don't have a job or keep quitting them just to not pay support THEY should be automatically be called to help clean up when a disaster hits and all pay goes to the custodial parent since they will supply them with food and shelter while helping clean up the disaster. (tornado's, hurricane's, fire, floods, earthquakes, etc...) or be drafted into the military with all pay going to the custodial parent since the military has dorms, food and clothing for them also.

3rd Should never be allowed to marry again to add more stress on their income of another person/persons to support when they are not supporting their child/children. Why? would anyone want to be involved let alone marry a person like that. they should at least inform the soon to be spouse they are getting ready to marry a deadbeat parent. But in order for this to work all the courts should have the names of all the deadbeat parent registered in a data base (just like they do with the child molesters) after all not paying child support is another form of abuse of the child/children and call it Financial Deprivation for a Child. So that when they register to get married it pops up deadbeat then arrest them on the spot. After all it would save their spouse-to-be any future problems with them.

JUST A FEW THOUGHTS OR IDEAS I THINK SHOULD BE LAWS OR ACTED UPON. WHAT DO YOU THINK?

I totally agree with you and: I totally agree with you and I am a woman . It doesn't pay to be a vindictive, evil bitch of an ex just because your not getting child support. Unfortunately too many women treat the fathers of their children (the exes) like a built in bank. Not once have I heard an argument where a women is saying "I wish the father was able to spend every other day with the kids instead of only every other weekend,or he's paying way too much in child support. nope the only thing I hear is he's not paying enough support, throw him jail, take away his license, garnish his wages. I wonder how many women out there who are (victims) actually match the support payments with your own contribution. I've had my stepson come to my house with holes in his shoes, been told that we should pay for his return bus fare home because the Mother gave him bus fare to get there (umm take it out of the effin support money that you collect). I don't envy the non custodial fathers out there one bit, they get the shitty end of the stick. They get to see their kids once every other weekend if the Mother agrees of course, and they pay an arm and a leg to support the kids not based on what they make. What the court will tell anyone paying support is if you lose your job, or god forbid can't work due to accident or injury is file a motion to change. GOOD LUCK, that will only take you 4-5 months and guess what your support payments don't stop. Now once your back on your feet you will owe arrears and have no chance in catching up. All the Government does is kick you when your down and try to keep you there. If there happen to be other kids involved, well the judge doesn't seem to give a shit how this is effecting them. Only cares about the kids that you pay them to care about. How about setting an example for your kids of how to live within your means instead of being money hungry hateful people.
* This is not intended for the parents who are actually looking for just reasonable support to look after their children (but then again, the courts wouldn't be involved if that's all you were looking for)

deadebeat?: You have to take into consideration that not all men are deadbeats. I got laid off from my job three months ago and am paying 50% of my unemployment in child support. I want to work but the economy where I live is terrible plus I am trained in a very specific field. I don't bring this back to court because my son would suffer with out the money because they would cut my child support by over 60% that I give to his mother (it is her only income except state aid). My sons mother has never worked and refuses to get a job and I owe $0 in back pay. I know I am being exploited and I hate it but I put my sons best interests first. I wish he could live with me because I could teach him better morals and show him how to strive to succeed but the courts do not see it that way, to them I am just an atm card. My son is now 12 years old and is starting to understand about the way his mother is (I would never say anything to my son about his mother and yet she lies about me all the time to him). He asks me questions like"why don't you give my mom any money", or "my mom says that you ruined her life".. all of this comes back to the fact that I left her when she cheated on me and is trying to use our son to hurt me... I always say the same thing to my son which is "Don't worry about that son, things like that are between your mother and I".It can be very hard to bite your tounge sometimes but you cant play he said she .. It is always a different situation and can't always be blamed on the mother or the father... I am just scared when the day comes where he starts to acceptt the fact of the type of person his mother is because in any childs eyes a mother should be nuturing,determined,strong, and supportive. I want him to see here as that but the simple fact is that he wont and he will unfortunately realize that his mother kept him for an income because of my inital success... It is always about the kids, becuase we are adults and should know how to maturely handle the situations without letting our children ever thinking about money and relationships and just let them be kids

First off i would LOVE to: First off i would LOVE to meet a man that pays Child Support cause i would trade in a heartbeat! Mine doesnt pay and still sees his child. I still by his diapers and most of everything he still sees his kid i am just tired of it all i am like whatever i have a second child that is not his to take care of so i focus on my son michael in the end there is a god and he knows everything.

Stressed Out Period: Mother here of small kids and a Ex who is vengful and full of hate. It started almost 15 years ago. We had kids together and he was very abusive towards me and saying nasty words to our kids. I could not take it anymore and left him. Even tho i left I still needed help with our kids. Not having a job and living with family members. I thank them so much for taking us in. But anyhow Their father did not want to help after i left and kept saying i should have stayed and the kids would have been still took care of. So selfish of him to say that. I am not going to stay and be abused and watch him talk to my kids in a nasty way. I would have defently been a bad mother if i stayed with a abuser. I did not see one cent and still struggled taking care of my kids. I had got used to him not helping and still let him see the kids. The kids loved him and cry for him. But he still saw them on the weekends and they were happy. Still no money. His familly even called defacts on me and tryed to get them tooken away. Did not work. i am a very good mom. Even tho i was stressed out with his family and defacts. He still saw his kids and spent time with them. But after about 3 years i met someone who had kids to and we got married. My now husband helped me take there deadbeat dad to court. The kids father had a layer and i had noone. But a representive who was for my kids. My ex fought the child support payments and wanted it lower to 300 and something$ a month i dont remember the amount. I did not except that and waited for another court date to be set. During this time waiting for the court date. I had to take my middle child to get dna done bc his dad was telling his layer and family members that bc he was blond headed that he did not belong to him. My kids found this out and my middle child was heartbroken. But still loved his father and cryed when i kept him away from him. When there dad called he call me nasty names and say stuff that shocked me. Say another thing right afterwords. But all my kids belonged to him 100%. Which i knew already. But i had to prove it. My now husband kept me calmed and stayed beside me the whole time. It was still rough tho untill we went to court. Finally after dna and all the bs. We go to court and his layer talking to my kids representive and wanting me to settle. My ex went up 80$ to add to the last payment i did not accept. Wow 80$. The representive said if i did not except and went infront of the judge. He will order around 300$ and month. I accepted the payments a month and did not want to. This man the father of my kids makes In the thounsands a week driving big trucks. Somehow he got away with it and now my kids are paying for it. Now that he pays me child support a month which is late r just does not come in. He lives better then his kids. And grins about it. Seriously he proud of himself. My husband pays child support to help his kids every month proudly and way more then my ex does for his kids and the child support enforements are giving him a hard time. Since they messed up them selfs. He paying for it. His licences are at risk and he has proof to prove he has not missed any payments. he even sent them copies and they still saying my husband owes one month of support and holding our taxes every year untill he pays. The ex is keeping his kids away bc i am in the picture now. She even turned them against him and when his kids want something. Thats when they call there dad. She literally raised her kids to be money hungry and to only call there dad when they need somthing r want something. He never sees them and he misses them so much. And everytime i see him talking to his kids. I see them disrepecting him and talking to him like he dirt on there feet. Demanding him to do something and making him feel like crap. Imagine the hurt he must be feeling and the brainwashing there mom doing. I see this everyday to the man i love and i cant do anything about it. We keep seeing bs and never get a brake. He says everything will be fine. But we are struggling and the system keeps screwing us. Hardly any help from the government. I keep telling myself everything be alright. But relying on the courts and goverments. The system period. It is corupted and only want money. When i wait every month for the child support. Its very late and the enforcements takes a percentage of it and then gives it to me. they even try to help my ex on how to screw me. Like telling him aslong as it not passed the last day of the month. Then he is not late. But i would not see the money at all for a long time. I cant set a another court appointment because the payments are set for 3 years. The more i try the more me and my kids get screwed by the system. ugh i be so glad when i aint never got to deal with them anymore and the exs. I posted before. Sorry so long. I am just venting and its not right how the courts and child support enforcements chooses which people they want to screw over and let others get away with it. How does that happen? I am not money hungry. I just believe in whats right and whats wrong. My ex is wrong. the system is wrong. I believe in if you make babies. Both parents should help raise that child. Both parents should act right for that child. that both parents should act like adults and not childish.

It doesn't matter if its a: It doesn't matter if its a man or women raising the kid, the NCP gets screwed. The system needs to be revised, and handled case by case. My current family has to adjust to economic changes while the other doesn't get affected. The amount to pay SHOULD adjust as everything else does. My family just got on food stamps, yet I still cant get an adjustment and the CP makes 30,000 more a year than us. HOW THE HELL DOES THAT MAKE
SENSE ?!! It's disgusting. When the NCP losses their paternal rights and the CP has sole custody THAT parent has taken on the FULL responsibility. Now I'm not saying the other parent shouldn't help but there are a lot of cases where the CP is purposely making things difficult. like my case, open communication, they are more then okay. I have another baby with my current husband then all a sudden my ex is demanding money?! I mean really? Its bull and he knows it. Now me (the NCP) has to find ways that my current family isn't going to have money taken from them. I.E. tax return, this whole year I havent worked bc I just had a baby and we decided I'm raising our kid instead of throwing our kid in day care. My husband is the sole provider, how is it ok to take his tax return when the problem is mine? Its not his kid, its mine kid from a past relationship. The "injured spouse form" is bull. No one but my husband should be entitled to his tax return but HIM. Also how is okay to take our kids tax credit?

Okay: I am a mother of three and i have three step kids. My ex complains about helping our kids. He naggs about our kids and his wife can call them gay and nasty and there dad will just let her. I took him to court after realizing he was a bum and did not want to come off the money. He work all day and not help. Whatever then when we go to court. He is only supost to pay 300$ for three kids a month. Okay He a had a lawer to defend him on that and he got what he wanted. He still see his kids and still naggs about them being trouble makers. but its only when he got them. Mind you. Ok and he treats the kids like he big brother and not a father. Told my middle child he was not his. After dna comes to know that is his son. And then says our baby was not his. The court knew all this and still only 300$ a month for three kids. All my kids has the same father. Ugh he makes my sick on how he acts with them and treats them and tells me one things. But denys it right after. And misses payments and or is very late. Cant depend on it.. I would be detailing it but i am so use to it that i dont even want to get upset again. But its whatever. My now husband with my three step kids. Well his ex gets way more in child support then i do with my ex. Because the child support enforements messed up. They saying my husband owes 500$. Well my husband has proofs that he did not miss a payment and even asked to be heard.. child support enforement will not let him take the stand with his proofs and he sent them copies showing he has not missed a payment. He gets threating letters in the mail saying his licences will get takin and so on. Still he calls and our taxes get held. Ok The ex says now that i am with him. he should pay more child support.. I Know bs. So she keeps his kids away from him. She turned his kids against him and dogs him to everybody who will listen. I can't stand deadbeats and i can't stand women who are greedy..

Grow up: I am disgusted, Bashing women on here. I read your comments and you being a deadbeat. Your going to defend the deadbeats. Understand this. When a deadbeat makes promises and a fool believeing them because your pregnant and thinking that person loves you untill you find out they are horriable at being husbands r wifes. Please preach that to someone else. You can't just stick your child back where they came from and say whatever. Not my problem.. To late deadbeat.. keep your stuff in your pants and stop telling lies. Get a life and stop complaining. Help support your child you made and stop making them. i can't stand men who call women money hungry B.. Grow up and stop being childish. I Can read between those lines and so can everybody else.. Grow up and take care of your responsiblity.

Hypocrites!!: What about the "dead beat" mothers????? What about the women who refuse to allow the fathers that actually pay their support to see their children?? You know what happens to them?? NOTHING!!!! The court, regardless of circumstances, ALWAYS side with the woman and it makes me SICK!!!! Im sure there are a lot of guys who dont pay child support, but I would have to guess that a LARGE number of us do, mine comes right out of my pay check so I cant NOT pay. I also have to pay for extra things, i.e. school fees etc etc even though the ex and her new hubby own a business and have money to burn, and when I reported this to Child Services, asking if I can take the things I pay for which I am not required to pay for, out of my Child Support, Im told that I cant and I just have to refuse to pay, well who suffers if I do that??? My son!!!! The child support system in this country is so messed up women have all the rights and men have NONE, so excuse me if I dont have any sympathy for you!!!!!!

Wow: This whole page is just wild. So many people that care about money more than their kids. I think I pay a little too much child support, but whatever. My daughter is happy and cared for. The system is biased against fathers because kids automatically stay with the mothers. Support payments are always required, if your ex is too much of a D bag to pay then you probably shouldn't have had sex with him. Oh, you can't afford gas? Your kids aren't important enough to walk for? If you can't support yourself, you should apply for aid. If you can join the military and refuse, I don't feel sorry for you at all. The court will do what is best for the child, because they are children and you are supposed to be adults. How about you all grow the hell up? On a more positive note, you should really try to get back on neutral terms with your ex, you two are still a parenting team and both are feeling this butthurt, you can really help each other out.

What good will it do to put the father in jail? He won't be able to work, be a father to his children, etc. Why would any judge do that? Get over your selfish bitterness and start thinking about the kids. There really is no solution, you had a kid with this nasty person and now your children have to pay the consequences.

So many weird stories about insane payments. All you have to do is talk to the court, in Arizona there is even a "parenting coordinator" basically a free lawyer that can help you with the paperwork. Nothing is set in stone.

WHATEVER: This is completely ignoring the issue of when a father TRULY can barely survive. God, how biased the court systems are, truly. AND society. Its always Deadbeat dads, always. Its never 'Vindictive moms'. :(

My brother is working 50 hours a week at a night job that pays hardly anything (He lives in an area that is very limited job-wise), and chooses to babysit his son during the day while his ex works, because otherwise he's only be able to see the kid like 14 hours a week. He has hardly enough money to eat, hardly enough time to sleep (Since he keeps his son for 8 hours during the day while his ex works), his ex makes three times as much as he does (She's a teacher, he works night shift at a hotel-you do the damned math), and the horrid woman just brought a lawsuit against him for 15,000 in court costs that he's supposed to pay right away or be in contempt?

My question is this: When is it deadbeat and when is it "Wow, that dude has no options and is completely trapped."

Yeah sure, there are deadbeat dads, but sometimes its very disheartening to hear the hopelessness in his voice when he talks about the situation. He's truly trapped. And he's a good man. He's had opportunities but didn't act on them in the past to bring lawsuits against her because she refused him his son, and then the pathetic 'girl' he used to be married to is choosing to be vindictive about this?

Why does society not recognize that Friggin SOMETIMES its the WOMAN that's being evil, truly evil. Sometimes its not DEADBEAT ... sometimes they don't have options. But noone ever actually talks about THAT part of it. BULL CRAP man.

I'm never getting a divorce, but even if I did and I had a kid, I'd be reasonable. People seem to become complete A-holes and never look at the other side of things the minute divorce starts to happen. JEEZ.

Excellent comment! Why are: Excellent comment! Why are there not more women out there like you? Oh that's right... because they really don't give a shit about the children or their ex husband; it's all about the money and nothing more...

I'm in a similiar situation but: i am in a similar situation but more complicated. I married a woman and we have three children. On our 10 year wedding anniversary she took our children and moved to a state 2000 miles away.

I was distraught, grieved, and suicidal. I spent the next two months in a hospital because I didn't want to kill myself but I was in so much pain.

When I moved from Kansas to Maryland, the courts from my ex new state (Michigan) sent me a child support letter stating I was making 4000 a month. I did not see this form to contest it as I had moved to Maryland and it was mailed to Kansas. So it was too late to say "no!! I don't have that job anymore!"

So, for the last three years I have been working, having 50% of my paycheck docked for childsupport and struggling through college so I can have a skillset to have an income in this economy.

Two weeks ago, I received a letter stating the Child Support was moved from Michigan to Pennsylvania (where I am in school) and it says I owe 35,000 dollars. My income has been about 4000 a year since the child support took effect in 2009.

So, now I have a court date on December 4, 2012 and I am fearful of going to jail. I am not a deadbeat parent..but I have been a victim of this red tape system that assumes anyone who cannot afford child support is a dead bead parent.

Do you know how hard it is to live off of 4000 a year? I have not had electricity since April 2011. I haven't had a hot shower since April. I use oil lamps and this summer was hell without power.

But my ex is given 2000 a month in child support from the state.

It's not fair. I lost my children. I haven't seen them, heard them, or seen any letter from them since August 21, 2009. My heart is broken. I haven't had any income since 50% of my minimum wage job goes to child support and I am still being docked more (35,000).

Just remember, please remember, there are those who are the victims on the opposite end too

problems with current child support formulas: The first thing that has to change is the court's measurement of child support compliance by the gross amount of child support collected instead of by the percentage of parents sharing the responsibility for providing for their children's needs.

Many states describe the purpose of child support to be providing the lifestyle that the courts assume the child would have enjoyed in an intact relationship instead of the lifestyle that the parents would have actually provided for the child.

The Child Support Performance and Incentive Act also needs to be changed so that reimbursements for child support collections are based on the percentage of parents who are sharing the responsibility for providing for their children's needs instead of the gross amount of child support collected in order to remove the financial incentive states currently have for increasing the size of child support awards.

There also needs to be a self-support sustenance reserve for both parents so that they can support themselves, as well as a rebuttable cap on high-income child support orders and some form of accountability as to how the child support is spent in order to help reduce the amount of hidden alimony in current child support awards that treat non-custodial parents as though they are the custodial parents indentured servants who should consider themselves to be damned lucky to visit with their children at the custodial parents whim.

In the commentary for P.O.P.S. vs Gardner, the Washington state Supreme Court stated that child support tables did not represent what parents actually spend on their children, but what they "ought" to spend, which means that the government is dictating what lifestyle a parent should provide for their children instead of allowing the parents to choose the lifestyle the children should enjoy.

There is also a report by True Equality that describes how states have manipulated the formulas used to calculate child support in order to increase the federal reimbursements the states receive under the Child Support Performance and Incentive Act in the interest of profit for the state.

Child support is no longer about the kids. It's about profit for the states, the courts, lawyers, and anyone else involved int he 'divorce industry'.

Yea let's just kill all the: Yea let's just kill all the innocent babies who never asked to be the children of these irresponsible young girls. Republicans aren't against birth control just the murder of babies who had no choice to begin with

I'll Go one Better: My neice is married to a deadbeat and they have four children between them. He will not get a job because he doesn't want child support taken out of his check for his other child with an old girlfriend. He has had three jobs in two years and has quit all of them as soon as the child support payments catch up. So not only is his other child suffering, but so is my neice and her three kids plus one.

I would call the child support office just hoping that they would throw him in jail but nothing will happen, and the deadbeat knows it. Meanwhile he is a giant slug pain in the a** and she can't get rid of him.

I thank you so much for: I thank you so much for sharing your story it helps to know I'm not the only one in this situation. I have become what I would say a begger I find myself always begging him to do stuff for the kids and I'm now finally strong enough to take him to court and force him to do what he is suppose to do....my hat goes off to you for demanding your RESPECT!!!!!!!

Beat this...: Nothing......and republicans want to force girls to have babies they can't afford on their own. How about putting more effort into forcing men to take care of their own children instead? Less hungry mouths, less crime, less abortions. Just a thought...

Dead Beat Father's who don't pay Court Ordered Support: Ok the above coment from a supposed woman has got to be from a scorned man. Ladies, if you have any red flags about your relationship act on them because a woman's best asset is her ability to feel things that men just don't. to the BS heshe I say FU and I take offence to he pays what is orderd by DCS. Yes, what he reports. But did he tell them for the last yr took out half his 401k and it's somewhere so sure let her have half of my half left. Did he report the side jobs he did for cash and never paid taxes and still does? But, your eating Top Raman again or Mac n Cheese out of box while spending day at DSHS to be told you get to much money from HIM to qualify. Did he tell the community that thinks your a "mentally ill drug addict" that really he's a undiagnosed NPD (got look that up online and see if your LOVER fits any of the descriptions or better yet go on the Natl Domestic Abuse website and type in Emotional Abuse). Or, if your out in your 1997 mini van picking up a kid from soccer practice that you will have to beg him to pay for thus giving him more control and in private he says your "lazy" and "get a job" or here you go if you were a career woman and you and him decided for you to stay home when got pregnant with his children which you made just as much money as him. When you had those beautiful babies remember he cried and looked at you and said "your amazing a Angel" blah blah blah, but now "you didn't really bounce back from the kids" "why don't you get a tummy tuck and boob job, we can finance it but it's totally up to you I love you just the way you are" OUCH! Don't lie to me and say you don't rap up in a towel before putting on your used to be naked only now pajamas to cover up. Don't fall into that trap! If you feel insecure now in the marriage take him up on the offer, I did and best decision ever. I am 45 and have the body of a 25 yo. Have had 3 kids all teens now, I am blessed to have my looks but was so emotionally abused by this bastard he brainwashed me to thinking was never going to do better than him. Picture this, as I was saying your running around in old mini van you hate, getting his kids, exhausted and need a shower but to tired, no make-up and sweats on and drive by and BAM is that........him in front of a new car, 30 lbs lighter, talking to some 20 something girl out front of the neighborhood gym? He said in court he can't pay you what you deserve and the Judge will assume you should get a job cuz poor man worked so hard to support his children and your taking him to the cleaners! Yeah, the drycleaners to get that "stain" like a famous Pres, dress stain off. Same guy that when you got nerve up to say we should get a divorce let's get a attorney or heaven forbid "counseling" (it only works if you both want to change-all it will do is make you feel worse when he says we used to be such good friends and have sex 3 times a week now all she does is kid stuff and I get left over mac n cheese and sex maybe 1 time a month) Ok then he realizes your about done so he steps it up with maybe a vacation (btw you can't afford and will find out when see your cc maxed out and in collections so can't get a place of your own if you wanted to but he's already set isn't he) or writes you a love letter that admits what a ass he is or he lied to friends or COURT the 1st time you tried to dump him. You wonder what happend to him he's back doing same thing and ask him "is there anything you like or love about me anymore you wrote how smart, and great Mother, amazing wife, able to run a small business, top at any outside home job you did" and he looks at you with pure hate because you kept the evidence that he did love you (he didn't) and says this time "yeah you give good head." Now you try and tell that to a packed divorce courtroom? Takes a real SURVIVOR OF DOMESTIC ABUSE look up emotional abuse online or better yet google "NPD". I am sure this person above is in either major denial about her ex and making you feel worse or is a man who is a NPD undiagnosed man-child running around buying his new girlfriend with the fake boobs and flat tummy dinner that should be given to you to feed his kids and OMG you get that tummy tuck and boobs back where they were before kids. He will of course then call you in private all kinds of things. Be strong and get help from professionals in DV not your gf who is bffs with her ex or your family that liked him. And don't you dare feel bad to file Contempt of Court if he's not paying the read, agreed, and signed court orders on file. Uh, don't bother with hate mail back at me I have SURVIVED way worse. Soon my kids will be gone and then I will have nobody unless I don't get it together. I am NOT ordinary or plain. When he said why don't you get your boobs done, a tummy tuck and dye your pubes they are a few greys. I did it for him then but you should see me now! I look amazing for my age and have guys in 30s thinking I am 28 max and I am 45. They say I am beautiful but my self cofidence is so sexy. Girls, take a look at that man.....you know the one who is balding yet has enough hair on his back when he Nairs it off looks like a skinned cat, and sure he's now got hip clothes when you used to think "please lose the tidy whiteys and you might get more sex you want" and know that the little 20 something gal or 30 even will catch on also, so you don't have to cover up his abuse or be embarassed anymore because his behavior is not a reflection on you! Make yourself get dressed up just one Thursday night and go out to a nice bar and you don't have to drink alcohol, trust me stay sober. But let the men come to you and offer you compliments. It does wonders. Plus ya never know what spy the ex has txting him right then. But be SAFE, you get new guys number and be honest and say you will call him and if you have to do Fakebook....change that profile to another city don't list address emails or jobs. BE SAFE but try and fake it for one nite, and I promise the next day you will be doing the paperwork or making a call to DSHS or DCS saying this man's a liar and I hold you responsible to do your job, my kids and my life style shouldn't go so low while he get's herpes and heaven forbid the jerk forgot can make a baby and then how much money more will you lose?
Nov is Natl Domestic Abuse month, at least do the other woman who are in denial or not strong enough to say "let me help you" or I hope you do post more stories of how you got what you deserve......RESPECT.
Next time he belittles you say "tell it to the Judge" click.

Clearly you don't get it.: I read your comment, and clearly you haven't a clue. It's not a matter of the custodial parent growing up or asking for outrageous amounts, quite the opposite. I am a professional. I work, but where I live and pay for child are, it's 900 a month, and thats chap. That alone would be one third of my paycheck. Not to mention 400 for my child's insurance, plus rent. Why should he get out of something that I do out of obligation. It's his obligation to help financial care for OUR daughter. You sound just like my step mother. Get a clue.

100% Truth: My wife was owed child support for her son with her first husband. Sometimes he would pay but most of the time he wouldn't. He owed $100.00 a week. We got married and had two kids of our own for a total of three. Now that money to raise HIS child had to come from somewhere, mostly from me since she has been a student off and on for years. If it came from me then it came from my kids. I know, I know thats the "price" you pay for marrying a girl with kids right, wrong. This guy owes a little over $27,000.00 in back support and the courts dont do anything. They threaten to go get him so he pays for a few months, then right back off the radar for a while. Courts dont care until they have to start to pay to supplement you. Then they do something about it. Just my experiences.

Everyone with with a normal IQ knows the system is biased.: I'm going through divorce right now, and have been for the past 3 years. The family court system most certainly is biased against fathers, because of the presumption that young children belong with their mothers. Why should men not have to share financial support? They should. Now tell me why women should not have to share EQUALLY in said support. Women want equal rights, but with equal rights should come equal responsibility. Talk about a sense of entitlement, and so much for the 14th amendment.

I can certainly understand: I can certainly understand your frustration, but I thought it was a little unfair for u to attack the author, her info was no more inaccurate than your own. She was speaking about her own personal experience, which you are no expert in...I'm sure. The fact of the matter, and I think you both confirmed this with your individual experiences, is that the system is flawed and needs some improvement, and while I am sorry to hear that your husband is a victim. There are other men out in the world who do not take care of their responsibilties, take your frustrations out on them, if it weren't for them...there would be no need for child support programs in the first place.

I have been paying child: I have been paying child support for 10 yrs now. my ex girlfriend had to jobs when we met she had other kids that she doesn't support but let me miss one payment or its lateral help breaks lose she has a nicer home then me drives a new car decked out while I drive a rusted out truck cuz my car got repoded. due to the court not lowering my support I don't mind paying the support but when its the guy with the children. it is differnet. I got custody thru court and I still had to pay 500 a month to her and I didn't even owe back support. I cant afford to live on my own cuz 75 percent of my check a week goes to her she hasn't worked a day since I was ordered to pay she quit hee job the day she got hee first payment. I don't want sympathy. I made the kids I pay for them but some woman take advantage of the support if it collecting support. payments. u should. have a job just like the kids dad

Bunch of BS: Your info is so untrue or so incorrect. I am a wife of a husband on child support and if he misses payments they order him to appear in court for contempt or a warrant is immediately issued if you don't comply. Once in court judges are in no way bias for the men they are rude, disespectfull and never care about the man's life or how he might struggle to make outrageous payments that are usually set way above what they really make. Or in my husbands case he is still involved in the care of his kids but they don't take that inconsideration either they just want the money by any means. What sense does it make to go thru all this back and forth destroying lives? Not just of the man but of the children too. You women need to wake up this society has done just what it set out to do keep our children lost and in the dark, because mom and dad can't grow the F-up and make decisions for themselves like responsible adults. This system does not work in anyones favor as the state collects fees on your child support before you even get it! Then destroys a man's livelyhood, identity, dignity, and freedom-- all because he has children with the wrong person! Unfair Florida!

Unbelievable: It is truly disgusting that the court system is worthless when it comes to enforcing child support. My ex is an attorney now. He didn't bother to pay child support while he was in law school and now owes over $35k in arrears. He plays games with the court and they allow him to do it repeatedly, give him continuance after continuance when he says he can't afford to pay. I am at a loss as to what to do. I have tried to file a complaint with the child support enforcement agency. They direct me to someone who does not answer the phone or return calls. The county attorney's office is useless because they refuse to speak to me since it is an interstate case and my caseworker where I live, well let's just say I might as well not have one at all. So, now my ex is appealing the amount that he was ordered to pay and apparently that gets to buy him even more time with the local court, since he didn't bother to show up at the last review. They issued an arrest warrant for failure to appear, but didn't set a new review date and he lives in Indiana...very unlikely he will get picked up at all. If he spent as much time actually working as he does fighting and playing games to avoid paying, he wouldn't be in arrears at all. Hope no one else has a case in Lexington, KY.

child support: i separated my husband 2yrs now becausd of the domestic violence, and i only recieved 5 times cheques child support, after that never ever he just stop and ignore me. I ask the centrelink and they told me they would take it away after his tax, till now nothing happened
what makes me angry, he's got a mortgage, two cars, and a business and he's alone sleep permanently in his wkshop paying no weekly rent like i do, tenancy rent in his mortgage, and he lies that he only earn $22.000 a year?
He earns a thousands out of his books. He only pays $30 a month for his daughter, how unfair is it? I'm struggle myself paying rent, child care go study to get a better chance for a job to give his daughter a better life, and i found out that he sent $1.500 to his unty in South Africa last week??
What the hell is he? I havent done anything for property settlement what can i do? I have no money to pay a loya for that? Is there anywhere i can go for help?

open your eyes judges: I have a daughter who does everythi ng for her 3 kids the dsd never pays a penny has been order to do drug tests. Lost his license to drunk driving. Now he sits st home perfectky ble to work and cares for his girlfriends kids and collects goverment money free housing free electricity free food when hes able to work. Then the judge tells him he should be proud of the man hes become? He desertred his kids for 3 years. where do you turn when you cant even depend on our justice system. He plays game after game . Now he says we beat the kids and any way we have tapes of the kids learning what having sex is by a 3 year old who said he learned it from his dad? The same child came home cursing. Oh but we should be proud of the man hes become. RIght

wow..there is alot of: wow..there is alot of deadbeat dads out there i guess..after 20 years of marriage he leaves me for another woman.(half of his age him 42 or 27) just plain gross but he was ordered to pay everything, child support, license and insurance on his daughters vehicle as well as his..help pay her college fees(yeah right) Kind of reminds of a slum lord that doesn't want to fix anything.
we aren't playing with plumbing tubes, or toilets, we are dealing with children...I don't know why people can get away with not doing the orders put forth especially considering i have already paid 4500.00 towards this divorce and my attorney wants 4100.00 more
Really?? I have chosen this..until these court orders are honored and something is done with him..( i have sole custody of both minor children and he tries to call the shots with me) then i am not paying a dime more out. I paid for our oldest daughter to get back to college all in one week by working 7 days a week 16 hours a day..now how is that right. I completely feel what you are saying and all dead beat dads should be shown exactly what it is like to not pay bills. good luck and i hope they start getting these kind of "dads" off the street. I love my kids and I would do whatever means it takes to raise them..but just is upsetting that they let people get by with this garbage. Good Luck will pray for you too

deadbeat dad: I notice you say the system is against men, yet you cannot name a single instance in how this might be true. WHY should men not have to share in the financial support of their children? WHY should they NOT go to jail (which they never do, because the judges never follow through with their threats of jail) for not following court ordered agreements? If you don't follow other types of court ordered agreements, you go to jail, so why should family court be any different? Can you intelligently answer a single one of these simple questions? Of course not, you would resort to name calling, etc. BTW, in your remark you sound like a immature teen! Which tells me you are probably a deadbeat dad with a seriously misplaced sense of entitlement. It WILL catch up with you!

I hear ya'll: My ex of 15 years of my life have gave me nothing but Aggrevation and heartach. We have 3 kids together. Who i been there for since they born. And still will be forever aslong as im alive. Well I finally left there father 4 years ago. He did not pay me nothing for 3 years and a half. Finally i took him to court and me and my now husband felt like the judge and our supost to be representing my children were on his side. He fought on paying me the right amount for all 3 of my kids. He had a lawer and his rich grandfather fight for him to. He totaly played a fool out of all of them and the one who supously representing my children said i better agree with the payments r the judge will lower it more. Im like WHAT are ya'll serious. Me and my husband has 6 kids all together and pays his child support like a father supost to. My ex fought it and is now late. So not only is my husband taking care of his kids. He is taking care of mine to. All we wanted was a little help and my ex still wants to see his kids without paying any child support. After reading all of yours. I mywells just forget about getting any help for my kids when it comes to the judge decision. I know for a fact that the judge will keep giving deadbeat dads chance after chance after chance. My brother yea my own brother knows what i go threw and he is like thousands and thousands behind on his with his 2 babies and he still making more babies. He only gives 20 dollars a month to get them off his back and the mother finally gave up and wanted him to sign over rights. I dont blame her. My brother knows better to make babies and not help support them. Shame on deadbeat dads for doing that to their on blood. Their child. I give up when it comes to supporting my kids by their deadbeat dad. I dont understand how they expect to be called fathers and they cant even support there child and be a father. My ex promised me he help with our kids and still not yet nothing. Not one penny, not one clothes, Shoes, School supplies, And such. If they are representing our kids, Then they need to help us mothers and some fathers to get the support for them and not let deadbeat dads get away with not caring for their babies and still make more babies with other mothers. Shame and im sorry you parents who are not getting the support, I know by hand how hard is to care for children and i know one day my kids will understand what i did for them. My children are young and they think of thier father as he is god. I cant bare to break their hearts and take them from him. I cry a lot for my kids and only talk good about their dad, knowing he aint worth their beautiful smiles and attention and love. I know god is watching out for me and my kids and he sees what people do. And again Mine and your kids will know who been thier for them and who was not. Just hold your head high. Thats all i have to say about that.

Deadbeat Father Of The Century Here!: My daughters sperm donor owes 16yrs worth of child support. I too, have a court order two actually. When they go to reenforce to serve him paperwork, someone says he isn't there. So for 16yrs he's ditched the paperwork. I did get to talk to him a while back, and he told me that he pays $20 month to the state to stay out of jail.? what the hell is that? he's got a web page saying: local bussiness owner enjoying life and what it has to offer: East coast cue repairs-here hes in jail i find out from talking to US marshalls....hes waiting to get picked up by them, for serious social security fraud so i do know his grandma died few yrs ago and she lived w/ him for many years,, so God only knows what he's done. So, I call child enforcement they say they couldn't serve him before cause they can't find him, well so i say he's in jail, can't you serve him while he's able to be found now....the lady says they won't do that. He's got a facebook advertising his wonderful custom pro pool cue bussiness- he's sponsoring people, he's won 2nd place in pool in circuit two , give me a break, and has a house down the road from me. Can't I somehow get the home? or what the hell do I do?

this is really sad...: My kids sprem donor owes over 32k in child support. The judge kept continuing the case to give him time to find work...he never did. I interupted at a court hearing to ask the judge to let him mop his floors for money and get this...they almost took me to jail. The system remains to be an advocate for these guys that do nothing. He didn't show up for our last hearing and a warrant was finally issued for his arrest. They found him a year later and he was ordered to do six months of the nine month sentence that was over his head. Since his release he has paid $5.00(yes five dollars). Unfortunately someone from the courts told him as long as he paid something he would stay out of jail. This is so pathetic. No communication with my children or support for them. This man deserves to stay in prison because he won't pay regardless.

re: I couldn't agree with you more: My daughter who has been divorced for 3 years just went into mediation with her ex today. He does not have to pay back support and his child support was also reduced by the mediator (retired judge). Now according to the laws you can do wrong and get by with it. My daughter and I also tell mothers who are deciding to get a divorce or not to get everything you need up front and first time around. Someone somewhere needs to change the laws.

Same thing... here: Contempt means nothing and taking responsibility for your kids means nothing either. sounds like I am not the only one with the same story. My ex even has the kids beg door to door for money so he can make himself look good to the kids by buying them things even though he spends nothing on braces, school, clothes or food. But he sure looks good to them because of what he calls 'sponsorship money' raised.

A Dead beat dad of the year: Well your case is a carbon copy of mine with a few twists. My ex owes me $60,000.00 in arearage on top of the weekly child support that continues to rack up. I filed for help from the state in 2003 and they continue the case over and over. In June of 2010 he was told to pay a lump sum of 30.000. By 2011 and another 30,000.00 on 2012. June 6 of 2011 has came and went and so far nothing. I have sincefound out the judge in my case is an advocate for fathers rights ha ha it explains it all. During all of this my ex decided that he didn't need to be in my sons lives a disappeared for 4 years maybe he thought out of sight out mind that he wouldn't have to pay. Last year he showed up again and announced he was ready to be a dad, but not to pay. G
Child support. My sons are now 18 and 15 and do not want to see him now, because of the emotional abuse he keeps handing them. Now I'm in court and paying thousands to suspend his visitation but it just so happens that the judge for that is the same dads advocate judge with my other case. Now not only is he not paying anything they are making my 18 year old who is about to sign with the united states marine Corp visit this piece of crap for which my son says I'll go to jail before they make me see him and my 15 year old is now forced to visit someone who is only insisting on this to spite me. He has never cared about my kids. I reAlly just want to thank mchenry county Illinois for not being there for my kids and for protecting a man that has no business being called dad even in the word deadbeat dad. By the way all of this caused my son to have an emotional break down and at 15 is on mood stabilizers and anti depressants. And in the end I'm left to pick up all the pieces and hold mesons together. At least god knows the truth

child support, yeah right: I go to court in two days to try to get my ex to pay his support. Again. He owes $7000 in arrearage and rarely pays. When he does pay, its for less than he is ordered. He receives $16000 per year FROM THE GOVERNMENT WHILE NOT PAYING HIS TAXES FOR THE LAST 10 YEARS for a job he cannot have because he is a felon. I found an old paycheck of his and it even has MY address on it, but they won't give it to me... So they are giving HIM money but took my food stamps saying I quit voluntarily. My job got shut down by the Board of Health and I am receiving unemployment. So I get $27 thats $27 no type-o per month in food stamps and $150 per week in unemployment. My rent is $450 per month. Plus I have to do all of our laundry at a laundromat. And gas is $3.84 per gallon right now, so I can't even afford to put gas in my car to go look for a job. What's the judge doing to help? NOTHING. Deadbeat dads do not have to pay for their children. My ex has 2 kids with another woman he is not paying and there's a 4th kid that he gave away to some guy he didn't even know. So good luck to all women out there. I know there are some women who don't deserve child support, but I am a woman who normally works 6 days a week. And I go to school! Screw the court system!

I couldn't agree with you more: Having gone 16 months without child support (and receiving less than I was awarded for almost a year prior to that), I have lost all faith in the will of the courts to enforce their own damn rules.

I tell every divorcing spouse I know to get as much as they can upfront, because there's a huge chance that they'll never see anything once those papers are signed.

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